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Lovie Smith says Bucs' best defensive effort of season started in secondary

TAMPA, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had their best defensive showing of the season in beating the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.

So how did it happen? Coach Lovie Smith credits a strong performance by the secondary as one of the main factors.

"When you have good play in the secondary, it allows you do to everything you'd like to do," Smith said Monday. "As a general rule, we just don't play Cover 2 -- Tampa 2 -- every snap. We would like to blitz about a third of the time. In an ideal world, we love playing man coverage and mixing in zones.