TAMPA, Fla. — The first order of business for Lovie Smith when he took over as Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach was to attempt to re-build the offensive line.

Gone were mainstays such as left tackle Donald Penn, guard Davin Joseph and center Jeremy Zuttah in one fashion or another. They essentially were replaced by three veterans — tackle Anthony Collins, guard Logan Mankins and center Evan Dietrich-Smith.

But following a 21-13 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday, Smith said that the changes on the offensive line haven’t worked as well as they planned.

“I think that’s safe to say. We haven’t played as well on the offensive line as we hoped,” Smith said. “We thought we needed to re-tool it starting off and we had a few injuries. But we haven’t played as well as we need to. Everything starts up front, as we talk about what we’re doing offensively, I’ll always start of talking about what we can do with our offensive line.”

The Bucs have only rushed for at least 100 yards once in their past nine games after accomplishing the feat in each of the first two games. Their 84 rushing yards per game average is the fourth-worst in the league. On Sunday, the Bucs rushed for only 66 yards on 22 carries and their longest run from scrimmage was 10 yards.

Without the presence of an effective running game, quarterback Josh McCown was forced to attempt a season-high 48 passes in wet conditions not suitable for throwing the football. He was sacked and lost a fumble and one of his two interceptions was the result of being hit as he attempted to throw.

“They had their best cornerback go down and we should’ve been able to throw the ball if we could’ve protected better,” Smith said.

“It just takes a couple bad plays, though. It’s not like we had a lot of bad plays the other day but if you break down a few times and end up getting a really bad play, an interception or something like that, it looks a lot worse… but again, the pressure was just a little too much.”

The Bucs also lost fullback Jorvorski Lane in the game to a season-ending leg fracture, while tight ends Austin Seferian-Jenkins (back) and Brandon Myers (ankle) also were injured.

“I won’t give you a whole lot of reasons why we weren’t able to run the football, but yes, that hurt us (Sunday),” Smith said. “All three of our tight ends went down for periods of time and we lost our fullback. So it’s hard to have a true running attack that we envisioned coming into the game. But you need to be able to adjust. That’s what forced us to become more of a passing (offense).”

Bucs right tackle Demar Dotson was the lone holdover from last year’s offensive line. Penn and Joseph were released and are starting for the Raiders and Rams, respectively. Zuttah was traded to the Baltimore Ravens for a fifth-round pick in 2015. Dotson said he believed there would be an adjustment period but didn’t think it would take this long.

“I knew it was going to be different as far as the continuity because I’d been with guys for a long time,” Dotson said. “So I knew there was going to be a lot to get used to. But I didn’t think it was going to be hard to jell out there on the football field because these are professionals and these guys coming from other teams, they’re good players. So you think that’s a professional athlete and you’re paying guys a lot of money to do the job so you didn’t think that would be an excuse. And that’s not an excuse. I think I look at is as we’re not doing our job.”

MEDICAL WATCH: TE Brandon Myers suffered an ankle sprain in Sunday’s game and was in a walking boot Monday. His status will be updated later in the week. … LB Mason Foster had to miss five plays with a laceration on his hand, but the injury is not serious and he should play Sunday against the Bengals. … LB Lavonte David missed his first game as a pro with a hamstring strain, but has a good chance to return to the lineup against the Bengals.