Joe had the misfortune of re-watching the Week 17 Bucs-Dolphins game yesterday.

The Bucs didn’t tackle well in that game early, and there were many other troubling tackling spots. Nobody left the stadium that day saying, ‘Man, those Bucs really swarm to the ball and tackle with great technique and aggression.’

This week at One Buc Palace, inside linebackers coach Mike Caldwell was asked about how the team will fix its tackling woes.

Caldwell had an interesting opening to his reply. “It’s something that is hardly every practiced,” he said.

Well, if that’s the case, then adapt training camp to make sure you actually tackle.

“You can drill it, and we drill the heck out of it,” Caldwell continued. “But at the end of the day, the more people you get around the ball and just going through the fundamentals we teach them day after day after day and, you know, you gotta have your hair on fire to run to the ball. And you gotta trust that if I take my shot, my teammate’s going to be right there and he’s going to be able to counter what I don’t do.

“So that’s the thing. We just want to continue to harp on, ‘Everybody get to the ball. Get to the ball good things happen.’ And once you get to the ball, get there in a nasty attitude and let’s knock it out.”

Joe places a lot of stock in free agent inside linebacker Alex Anzalone. He can tackle. And he plays to a high standard. He should be a one-man tackling fix in a lot of ways, and rookie Josiah Trotter can tackle and play with his hair on fire.

That doesn’t mean those guys won play mistake-free ball, but Joe thinks that duo will rise above tackling coaching that hasn’t been effective the past two seasons.

It’s felt a lot like guys were tuning out the repetitive messages from Caldwell and others.