Tampa Bay Buccaneers

New defensive coordinator

Mike Smith is wasting no time tinkering with a defensive front four that needs to be at its best to help out a secondary that yielded 31 TD passes. One look has DTs Gerald Mc

Coy and Clinton McDonald stationed inside and DEs Jac

quies Smith and second-round draft pick Noah Spence on the outside. Another combination matches DEs Robert Ayers and

William Gholston with DTs McCoy and McDonald. Gholston, Ayers and Kourtnei Brown also have lined up inside.

Ayers had nine sacks last season with the New York Giants. McCoy had 91⁄ sacks in 2013 and 2 81⁄ in each of the last two 2 seasons. Rookie watch: Top pick CB

Vernon Hargreaves III from Florida has opened camp working with the second team in base and with the first team in nickel. Spence, the 39th overall pick from Eastern Kentucky, is making his presence felt early in camp and plans to further his cause for a starting job once the pads go on. Though WR Kenny Bell is entering his second year, he essentially redshirted last season because of a nagging hamstring injury that sidelined him for all 16 games. The fifth-round pick from Nebraska has 4.4-second 40-yard speed but is on the bubble.

Noteworthy: Wide receiver Mike Evans had an interesting response when asked what he learned from his team’s free fall from playoff contention last season. “I learned that we needed (rookie MLB) Kwon Alexander a lot,” Evans said. “He’s a great player. When he got suspended, we lost every game after that.” The Bucs went from 6-6 to 6-10 and yielded 10 more points a game with Alexander serving a mandatory four-game suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs. ... LG J.R. Sweezy entered camp on active/ physically unable to perform list after coming from Seattle during the offseason. He missed the offseason after having a medical procedure on his back. ... WR Louis Murphy (torn anterior cruciate ligament) also started camp on active/PUP.