Winners put aside their egos.

Until the Bucs check in at One Buc Palace to report for training camp, Joe will try to get in the mind of defensive coordinator Mike Smith.

Joe will regularly deliver excerpts and/or highlights from Smith’s book, “You Win in the Locker Room,” available on Google Play and iTunes.

You want to win? Simple, writes Bucs defensive coordinator Mike Smith. First thing is first, however.

Check your ego at the door. Winners don’t let their egos get in the way of winning games.

“I believe to be a successful leader you have to have an ego that drives you to be great, but you must give up your ego and serve your team in order to be great. You must lose your ego so you can stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on your team. After all, humility doesn’t mean you think less of yourself. It just means you think of yourself less and your team more (to paraphrase C.S. Lewis).

“Too many leaders worry about what the media says about them. They worry about what successes and failures look like to the world outside the locker room. Unfortunately we’ve seen too many business leaders and coaches make decisions based on their egos rather than their teams. Sometimes, when teams lose, instead of taking the blame, coaches blame the players. Once coaches do this, they lose in the locker room. We’ve seen coaches lock their players out of the locker room and then tell the media it was because they didn’t play hard. Well, if they didn’t play hard, whose fault is that? If the coach didn’t inspire them to play hard, by creating the right culture, then the coach needs to take the blame, not pin it on the team.”

Boy, this Mike Smith sure is the anti-Coach My Scheme.

But reading this passage, two players come to mind: Derrick Brooks and America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowler Jameis Winston.

When Brooks played, man, imagine the stats he could have rolled up if he was used like Bill Belicheat used Lawrence Taylor? With his speed and smarts, Brooks would have been a total terror for quarterbacks. It blows Joe’s mind just to think of it.

Instead, Brooks set his ego aside and bought in to Father Dungy’s teachings, and become one of the best outside linebackers in a 43 defense in NFL history, certainly the best since Jack Ham. Brooks put away his pride — and the untold sacks he could have created — in order to be a champion.

And Jameis? Yes, the dude is unselfish. In this “Sound FX” video from NFL Films, Jameis rolled right and threw a short touchdown pass to Adam Humphries. On the bench afterwards, Humphries told Jameis that he could have run it in, and Humphries was right. There were no defenders between Jameis and the end zone.

How did Jameis respond? “It ain’t about that.” Jameis wanted six points, not glory.

Pretty sure players like Brooks and Jameis are the type of players Mike Smith had in mind in the excerpt above.