Changing with the times: Veteran Tampa Bay Buccaneers CB Ronde Barber practices at Safety
Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach, Greg Schiano is using the voluntary workouts which started from Monday to experiment with his players and see their performances at new positions.
On Tuesday, Buccaneers’ veteran cornerback, Ronde Barber tried his hand at playing safety for the first time in his 15-year career.
Barber was coaxed out of retirement by Schiano as he took him onboard with his plans for the franchise and now it seems that Barber maybe the Buccaneers solution for their lack of depth at the safety position.
Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times Schiano said that he was experimenting and also added that Barber performed well at the position.
"That’s one of those (experiments). I think Ronde can certainly do it and did a good job today doing it. We’ll see. Again… how do we get the best 11 on the field?
Adding further he said.
"It was mentioned Ronde was working at some safety. We obviously have some other guys on the roster that play safety. There are safeties that are still in the draft, there are safeties that are still available through free agency. We'll kind of just figure
it out, we'll work through it. It's a work in progress. But we'll have two opening day, I promise.''
The Buccaneers are a little short at safety with just four players on the roster for the position but they still have the draft and free agency to gain some help at the position before the start of the season.
Barber said that he doesn’t mind the change in role and he will help the franchise in any role they want however, he went on to add that he was too small to be effective at the position.
The Buccaneers ended last season with a poor 4-12 record and lost ten straight games. This year however, after some big buys in free agency and also the coming of new coach Greg Schiano things are looking up for Tampa Bay and they are highly confident of
their prospects in the new season.
Tampa Bay also has the fifth overall pick in this year’s draft and are likely to move for cornerback Morris Claiborne which will further shore up the defence.
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