New Bucs ST coordinator Danny Smith brings a proven blocking blueprint from Pittsburgh, aiming to revolutionize Tampa Bay's special teams play with dedicated drills.
One of the more rare plays in football is a blocked punt, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had zero such blocks any last season.
According to the team's new special teams coordinator, there were 1,760 punts a few years ago and only eight were blocked.
Tampa was on the wrong end of two blocked punts and five blocked kicks overall.
That’s part of the reason Danny Smith is in Tampa.
Smith, a 72-year-old with the energy of a teenager, needed a new job after last season. He had been on Mike Tomlin’s Pittsburgh Steelers staff for 13 years, all as special teams coordinator. But the day after the Steelers’ 2025 campaign ended, Tomlin resigned after 19 seasons, and Steelers ownership told his assistants to look elsewhere, including Smith.
Because Tampa had fired Thomas McGaughey, the special teams job opened up, and Smith took it.
So while most men his age who move to Florida are doing so to celebrate retirement, Smith is trying to help the Bucs reclaim the NFC South.
A blocked kick or two in a tight game would help the cause, and no team was better at doing that over the past decade than the Steelers.
Pittsburgh blocked 17 kicks between 2017 and ‘25, tying for the league lead.
In an interview with the Buccaneers official website, Smith laid out how the Bucs will practice their punt and kick blocks.
“It is that difficult to do and there is precision involved,” Smith said. “It is not a natural thing so you will see it in some drill work. We will have a session on that on a daily basis. I will show them tape and clips and then we will take it to the field and we will end, start and break-up practices with it. It a step-by-step that I have put together over the years on how to do it. Again, you need players to do it. It isn't just about the process. They carry out that process to accomplish the goal."
Another big reason for the Steelers’ special teams success is now in Tampa.
Miles Killebrew has been one of the best special teams players in the league over the past several years, being named first-team All-Pro in 2023. A big part of what makes Killebrew valuable is, you guessed it, blocking kicks. No player in the league has blocked as many as Killebrew (four), and this is despite him missing most of the 2025 season with an injury.
With his relationship with Smith an obvious factor, Killebrew signed with the Bucs earlier this month, inking a one-year deal worth $1.79 million. Smith described Killebrew as a "tireless worker."
Of the Bucs nine losses last season, six of them were by one possession. Had Tampa blocked a kick in one of those games, it could have been the difference in winning the NFC South vs. missing out on the championship thanks to a tiebreaker.
With Killebrew and Smith now in the fold, the Bucs odds of reclaiming the south just may have increased.
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