Tampa Bay Buccaneers Defense: How Broken Is It and Is It Repairable?

FUBAR.

Fouled Up Beyond All Repair.

FUBAR equals the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense.

If you were witness to the 41 points that the Atlanta Falcons up up in 22 minutes of the final game, then there's no arguing here.

The toughest task facing this re-rebuilding of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by whomever is chosen as the new head coach, is the downtrodden defense.

This defense is horrible, really. Worst in the NFL, doesn't matter what the statistics say, these guys were the worst. This was an 0-16 calibre defense if there ever was one.

So how do you fix this offensive defense?

There are no easy fixes and certainly we don't have any here at our fingertips, otherwise I'm sure Mark Dominik would be phoning me this morning.

First and foremost, someone needs to flush the toilet and here are some names that needs to go:

Myron Lewis, Sean Jones, Geno Hayes, Quincy Black, just for starters.

With Black, his contract almost makes it impossible to cut him. That's the politics of football. Black is, at best, a backup. Hayes? See ya. Jones? So long, farewell, you simply cannot tackle an NFL player.

Frank Okam? Harumph.

Which brings us to Aqib Talib. Perhaps the Texas legal system will do the new head coach a favor and make that decision easy.

The one thing you never saw with this defense was defenders swarming the ball carrier. There was less of a pass rush than in 2010. There is hope up front with Adrian Clayborn, Da'Quan Bowers, Brian Price and hopefully a surgically-repaired Gerald McCoy.

The linebacking corps needs a total revamp and you'd hope with proper coaching and two better players to his left and right, Mason Foster would be OK.

The secondary? It will be interesting to see if Ronde Barber does indeed pack it in since his best friend was fired. Ronde is good for probably one more year and with the fifth pick in the April draft, if the Bucs decide to stay there and not move down, well, Morris Claiborne from LSU would be a nice replacement for Talib.

Hopefully, Morris doesn't have any anger issues and he wouldn't be starting at LSU if he wasn't already more disciplined that the aforementioned Talib.

Free agency can cure what ails the safety position, for now.

Free agency will have to cure what ails the linebacking corps, for now.

The sad fact is that this defense is so broken that it will take some heavy surgery to repair the gashes, the wounds that were opened up over those final 10 games.

This is no easy task.

It involves some very heavy lifting.

Very heavy.