Buccaneers hope to exploit Jerry Jones' House of Horrors

The Dallas Cowboys' locker room could be up for a reality TV show award.

Tirades by Dez Bryant, and Greg Hardy's continual agitating statements have turned Jerry World into Jerry Jones' House of Horrors.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hope to exploit those in-house catfights into a victory on Sunday though nothing is ever guaranteed over at One Buc Place.

The Bucs' problems are more on the field, albeit Demar Dotson's whining that coach Lovie Smith reneged on his promise to start the offensive lineman after he came off IR.

"I don't give out starting positions a week in advance. I don't know exactly where he got that," Smith

declared matter-of-factly.

Dotson's complaint aside, the Bucs seem to be a well -nit group that trusts and cares about each other.

The Cowboys offer the Buccaneers a chance to leave Raymond James Stadium on Sunday at 4-5, which would be an awfully nice gift. They also offer Tampa Bay a real chance to win.

Dallas has lost six straight games since quarterback Tony Romo went down with a collarbone injury. But this is where Smith's tenure as head coach could get a boost -- or push him out the door a little.

The Bucs appear to lead the league in allowing quarterbacks to have career days. The list is a little entertaining, and includes Ryan Mallett, Derek Anderson and, most recently, Kirk Cousins.

Tampa Bay can't allow that to happen with Cowboys' backup Matt Cassel -- who is not all that bad -- and may not spell doom for Tampa. They did beat guys named Brees and Matty Ice, so why not Cassel, too?

But these Bucs live in a world of their own that nobody understands. They're allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete 70 percent of their passes, and don't appear to have anybody who can stop Bryant and tight end Jason Witten. That's before throwing Cole Beasley into the mix.

Dallas leads the league in allowing Hardy and Bryant to turn their locker room into a training ground for psychiatric PhD candidates.

People have blamed Tampa's defensive woes on Smith's Cover-2 defense, which leaves the middle underneath looking like Grand Central Station with no one to direct traffic.

It seems as if the Bucs will start Sterling Moore and undrafted rookie Jude Adeji-Barimah at cornerback, with Lovie keeping Johnthan Banks and Mike Jenkins on the bench.

But the Bucs' biggest problems are within themselves, with penalties and red-zone flops. Tampa Bay is second in the NFL with 81 penalties -- eight have been for unnecessary roughness and 32 are pre-snap penalties.

"It's first-and-10 (for the other team), and all of a sudden, it's first-and-five," Bucs defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said. "It's a fine line. We want them to get off the football and attack the line of scrimmage, but offsides, they've hurt us. It's something we're working on and trying to get fixed."

Asked about all those neutral zone infractions and post-whistle penalties, Smith simply said it's too many.

"You address it when it happens and you keep preaching it. Before the snap and after the whistle is blown, that shouldn't cause us to lose any football games," Smith said.

Getting it fixed against the Cowboys presents a challenge, because Dallas has arguably the best offensive line in the league.

"You can quote me on that. It's the best offensive line in the league," Bucs all-pro defensive tackle Gerald McCoy says. "Individually they're all talented, but what makes them so good is how tight-knit of a group they are. If one guy gets beat, he's never beat because there is always somebody helping him."

The Bucs' red zone problems on offense are well-documented. They rank near the bottom of the league, converting only 42.9 percent of their red zone opportunities into touchdowns, which is fifth-worst in the league. That figure puts them in a category with Cleveland and San Francisco, to name a few.

The Bucs were 1-for-4 in the red zone against the Giants last week, and offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter attributed it to a multitude of reasons.

"We had a couple of blocking issues where we didn't block runs right," Koetter said. "So, you got two guys blocking one guy, and then nobody blocking the free hitter who comes over and makes the tackle. That happened twice. Then there is a couple of times where Jameis (Winston) either needs to make a better throw, or he's not on the right guy, or I got to give (the team) a better play. It's a combination of all those things."

The Bucs hope the Cowboys' combination of things in the locker room are worse than Tampa's combination of things on the field, and Lovie can walk out of RayJay with a 4-5 record -- which would be an encouraging sign.

This story was originally published November 14, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Buccaneers hope to exploit Jerry Jones' House of Horrors ."