Raheem Morris calls Clifton Smith, his Pro Bowl return man, a "fighter," and for good reason.
Smith fought back from a leg injury in college that some doctors feared would be career-ending. He has battled the perception that he is too small for the game of football essentially his entire life. He struggled his way up from the bottom of the barrel in the nascent days of his pro career, when he was nothing more than a three-day invitee to a Tampa Bay Buccaneers' rookie camp. He fought through a concussion delivered in the most brutal fashion last year, and the possibility of a mental stumbling block caused by the play, to lead the NFL in kickoff return average.
Clearly, Smith can recognize when he needs to fight. He recognized that two summers ago, when the Buccaneers were beginning their 2008 preseason schedule.
In the backfield, those Bucs had Earnest Graham coming off a breakout season and Warrick Dunn returning to his place of first NFL glory. They had 2007 draftee Kenneth Darby looking for another shot and former 1,000-yard man Michael Bennett seeking career rejuvenation. For kickoff and punt returns, they had hand-picked second-rounder Dexter Jackson as well as Micheal Spurlock, who had made history nine months earlier with the franchise's first-ever kickoff return for a touchdown.
Smith had...well, a steep uphill battle, and some serious talents of which he needed to make the coaches aware. It was time to fight.
So, in four preseason games, all the diminutive rookie from Fresno State did was rush for 53 yards on 19 carries, catch 11 passes for 91 yards, return four punts for 55 yards and run back two kickoffs for 47 yards. He led the team in receiving, finished third in rushing yards, had the best kickoff return average and picked up nearly 14 yards per punt return. Oh, and he also managed to lead the team in special teams tackles.
It's a measure of how far Smith had to come that all of this only earned him a spot on the practice squad to start the season. It would be midseason before he was called up to take over for Jackson in the return game and begin his stunning run to the Pro Bowl. Smith knew that every snap counted, both in the preseason games and in the midweek sessions that followed his addition to the practice squad. There are a number of young players on the Buccaneers' current 80-man roster who are almost certainly realizing the same thing right about now.
"It's decision time all the time," said Morris, the Bucs' second-year head coach. "They're graded on every practice tape, they're graded on every game film, they're graded on everything. If you want that position, you'd better go out there and take it this week and next."
Morris was the Buccaneers' defensive backs coach in 2008 when Smith made his meteoric rise. He could see in the rookie back a quality that became invaluable in his quest to make it in the NFL, and has since helped him in the sometimes harrowing role of kick returner: fearlessness.
"You're talking about a guy that came in here and really had to fight his way from the bottom up," said Morris. "He's no stranger to that and I don't think he's afraid of it. I don't think he's worried about it in the least way. He's a mentally tough guy and he's going to go out there and get himself going no matter what."
The Bucs have rebuilt a good portion of their roster over the past year-and-a-half. The team is younger than it has been in many, many years, and the opportunity exists for some of these young men to develop into long-term core players for the franchise. Smith is already well down that path. Some other newcomers will be trying to follow, and Saturday's preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs is the next great opportunity to do so.
Rookie defensive end Erik Lorig, for instance, is a late seventh-round draft pick who started his collegiate career at Stanford as a tight end. He missed a good portion of the 2009 season with a groin injury and finished with just 4.5 career sacks, but Buccaneer scouts saw a player with very good raw athleticism. He has already begun to emerge as a possible special teams force - you don't see too many 275-pound ends on kickoff coverage, as Lorig has been - and he could be a diamond in the rough as a pass-rusher. The defensive end position is one that still needs significant sorting out on the Bucs' depth chart.
Morris has on several occasions referred to Lorig as a "Ninja Turtle" which, as he explained at length on Thursday, is intended as a compliment.
"He's showing the ability to stand up, make some plays off the edge," said Morris. "He's showing the ability to be flexible, go to both sides. A Ninja Turtle's a good thing in my book. There's a lot of terms I use that [people] may not realize are compliments. You're talking about the athleticism, great athleticism, a guy with great knee-bend. They have quick-twitch [muscle action] and a lot of God-given ability. That's actually a good thing for Erik Lorig."
Safety Corey Lynch isn't a rookie, but he came to the Bucs after the 2009 season had started as a free agent after his release from the Cincinnati Bengals. He has a total of 20 NFL games played (13 last year with the Bucs) and no starts, and he has been overshadowed at his position by the battle for the starting strong safety job going on between Sean Jones and Sabby Piscitelli. But Lynch blocked a punt against Miami last Saturday, something he seems to have a strange knack for, and made several impact plays on defense.
"He had a breakout game on Saturday," said Morris. "He had the blocked punt, he almost had two interceptions and he had a couple big-time tackles and couple nice plays and a great hustle play. He really showed up, showed up big. He was trying to get into that battle at safety, and the battle to be on this football team. If he goes out and plays like that again, you're talking about adding another guy to the fight and another guy to the mix for playing time."
Tight end Ryan Purvis spent almost all of his 2009 rookie season on Tampa Bay's practice squad and was finally rewarded with a call-up to the 53-man roster for the final game of the season. The Bucs kept him around all of last year after he had a fine first preseason, with five catches for 69 yards and a touchdown. He's off to another good start in 2010, with two catches for 26 yards in the Bucs' preseason opener last weekend. All three of the Bucs' main tight ends from last season - Kellen Winslow, Jerramy Stevens and John Gilmore - are back and ready to reprise their roles in 2010, but Purvis is trying to convince the team to expand the depth chart at that spot.
Purvis has impressed Morris by finding ways to make plays despite not being blessed with top-end speed.
"He came in here and he was one of those guys that we really didn't know much about," said the coach. "We knew his character and we knew about the school he went to. We knew he was smart and would know the offense and some of those things. But he's been able to work here in the offseason, pick up some weight, work on his blocking. He's like a mixture between Jerramy and Kellen. He has great hands, he's reliable, he runs great routes, he's very smart and he's really improved since he's been here."
With only three quarterbacks in training camp - matching the number the Bucs almost always carry on the 53-man roster - it would appear as if the team's depth chart is relatively settled at that spot. Josh Freeman is entrenched as the starter, Josh Johnson is the clear #2 and second-year man Rudy Carpenter completes the trio. Like all players, however, Carpenter is also competing against the waiver wire. If he had stumbled in training camp or were to look unimpressive in the games, the Bucs could see what other quarterbacks are available. However, Carpenter has given them no reason to do so thus far. Against Miami he completed six of 12 passes for 72 yards and appeared to be on the verge of leading the Bucs to a comeback victory when his 31-yard completion to Chris Brooks down to the Dolphins' nine ended in a lost fumble.
"Rudy walked in and did a great job the other night," said Morris. "He's a gamer. It's not going to be the prettiest throw a lot of the time but he has great touch, he has great anticipation and he understands the offense. He's a nerd, so to speak, in the classroom. He knows it all and wants to get it out there. And he has great relationships with our whole football team. They view him as a guy they can talk to and they can go to."
Lorig, Lynch, Purvis and Carpenter - just four of the many young players who are looking to Saturday night as the next chance to make their marks. Hopefully they can do what Smith did two years ago: Banish fear and seize the opportunity.
