Two-minute defense shined.

Joe just returned from the bowels of the Georgia Dome talking to Bucs players, and it seems Dirk Koetter being such a perfectionist about red zone offense paid off for the defense.

The Bucs defense in the fourth quarter looked gassed. It seemed they were about to break and repeat the Capitol Collapse from last year — and no, Joe didn’t like that!

“Matt Ryan over there, he’s a great quarterback and he’s going to make plays,” Bucs corner Brent Grimes said of the Dixie Chicks’ near rally.

But when the Bucs needed a stop to seal the game, they got it. And it all goes back to Koetter.

“I will never argue with that man,” Jameis said of Koetter and his insistence that the two-minute offense be perfect in practice. Well, who do the Bucs play against in practice? The defense of the Bucs, that’s who.

Mike Smith believes that paid off for the defense today.

“We are always practicing the two-minute offense,” Smith said. Smith also told Joe that he has a “menu” of what he wants to run in a two-minute situation. And even though he sits up in a coaches’ box well away from the field, he made sure his instructions were clear what the defense was going to do.

Practicing against the two-minute drill of Koetter’s “helped us there,” Smith said of the final stop, the game-winning stop.

“When he goes [into a hurry-up offense], I think that is when Matt Ryan is at his best,” Smith said.