Play on the Edge Not Over the Edge

It seemed while watching the Bucs, you were just waiting for a yellow flag to be thrown on every other play. Unfortunately this is what happened as the Bucs were the most penalized team in the NFL this past season.  The Bucs had 143 infractions which is just unacceptable, and it cost the team some more wins this year.

Enter Mike Smith, who when with the Falcons did an outstanding job of limiting penalties and his teams were usually at the top with fewest flags. Smith is all about playing smart but physical at the same time, he does a great job of putting an heavy emphasis on reducing flags because it takes a toll on the team if occurs too many times.

“The defensive pass interferences are probably the toughest ones to deal with, then the egregious late hits and things like that. You want guys to play tough, you want them to play smart, though. We want to be tough, we want to be aggressive, but we’ve got to play smart. We always talked about taking it right up to the edge, but let’s not go over.”

Mike Smith added that its extremely important to play penalty free football, especially on defense.

“One of the things that I think is very important is that you strive to play penalty-free football. On defense you have to play penalty-free football because if you don’t you’re getting a lot of opportunities to have the spot fouls. The things that really hurt you are the defensive pass interferences or the silly, dumb penalties. As a defense we’re going to strive to play on the edge, not over the edge. That’s a fine line and when teams play on the edge they’re ready to play and they’re ready to play the way the game is supposed to be played.”

I completely agree, the Bucs got to stop the flags if it wants to make the playoffs in 2016, with Koetter and Smith here I think there's a great chance of that happening.