Too Little Too Late: Bucs Apply Public Discipline

The Bucs are a sloppy, undisciplined, seemingly ill-prepared team this season. The easy response to that is to start imposing discipline for mistakes. Start fining people, benching them for a while, forcing them to do extra work after practice, forcing them to get dinner - you can get pretty creative with disciplinary action.

The Bucs undoubtedly had some of that discipline going on inside the building. Intermittent reports on fines and other disciplinary measures have come out the past seasons. But the public discipline didn't come out until the first game against the Panthers a few weeks ago, when Brian Price was sent home. In this past Sunday's game against - again - the Carolina Panthers, the discipline appeared again.

When Legarrette Blount fumbled a handoff on the first play of the game, he was benched for a half. When Tanard Jackson messed up a coverage on a long touchdown, he was benched. When he came back into the game he promptly lost his jock strap when Cam Newton juked him on his way to a 48-yard touchdown. And once again, Tanard Jackson was benched for a series.

All of this discipline is nice to see. It's a public show that the Bucs won't accept sloppy play and mental mistakes anymore. Too bad it took 15 games of a disastrous season to get to this point.