Gerald McCoy Says Buccaneers Lacked Discipline In 2011

Gerald McCoy's second season in the NFL wasn't a particularly great one. The defensive lineman, the third-overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, played in just six games because of injury, recorded just one sack, and saw the Buccaneers defense fall apart down the stretch after he went down. But McCoy, who's moonlighting as a reporter for OCNN this week, sounded pumped about the prospect of new Tampa Bay coach Greg Schiano coming to Florida. "From what I found out, he's well-respected in the coaching circle," McCoy said Thursday. "I got to interview Bill Belichick earlier this week and he told me personally that he's learned a lot of stuff he knows from Coach Schiano. For a coach like Bill Belichick to give my new coach a stamp of approval? You can't ask for anything better than that. "He's defensive-minded and I'm a defensive player, so that's what I'm looking for." McCoy also acknowledged that last season's debacle was partially caused by a lack of discipline within the locker room, something that most folks believed happened, especially late in the year. "Here's the thing: in order to be a great team in the NFL, coming off a 10-win season, you're not going to surprise anybody any more," McCoy said. "So you're going to get everyone's best. And you can't do the same things if you're going to be great in this league. I learned that from Warren Sapp. You've got to give them something new. I just think our discipline level dropped a little bit. We kind of had the second-year slump coming off a 10-win season and kind of living off that. But I think we had a wake-up call. We got a new coach, they changed a lot of things and I think we're going to be back."

Source: CBS Sports
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