Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Photos: Five Potential Surprises
The Bucs will go to camp soon, and when they do they'll set the stage for such surprising developments as rookies winning the kick return jobs and Carl Nicks earning a cool Star Wars nickname.
If you're reading about the Buccaneers' training camp, it probably means you care about the Buccaneers' training camp, and if that's the case you were probably tuned into what was going on at One Buc Place about a year ago. One of the surprising developments of that period was the strong play of Rashaan Melvin, a cornerback from Northern Illinois who had been signed as an undrafted free agent. The 6-2 Melvin has the size that defensive coordinators covet at the position, and he has once again looked promising this offseason.
If you were to arrange the depth chart based on roster seniority, Gettis would be on the very last line. There are 13 wide receivers on the roster the Bucs are currently set to bring into training camp, and Gettis was the last one added to that list. He came to Tampa during the second week of June to take part in the team's offseason-capping mini-camp on a tryout basis. Afterwards, the Bucs signed him up. One suspects that Gettis is using this off time before training camp to mainline the team's offensive playbook, because if he can start camp on an equal footing he should have a very real chance to stick around. There's no real reason to get overly excited about the 26-year-old wideout, but at the same time there's no real reason to dismiss his chances. After presumptive starters Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans, the Bucs' receiving corps is wide open. Like, Grand Canyon-wide open.
There's a good chance the defense will look better out of the gate this summer, as well. That crew does feature two Associated Press All-Pros in Gerald McCoy and Lavonte David, after all, and the new head coach is a defensive guy. So wouldn't it be, uh, surprising if the Bucs' offense broke out like gangbusters on the first week of camp? Yeah, surprising and fun. The reason I bring this up is that we don't really have a strong grasp on what that offense will look like. In addition, we have a ton of new additions on that side of the ball. What if Jeff Tedford's crew blitzes the Buccaneers' defense with an attack that is strong out of the gates? I think we would all enjoy that, even if we're proud of Tampa Bay's defensive history. And it would certainly be surprising.
Eric Page did a nice job as the Bucs' return man last year and should definitely be considered one of the favorites to handle those duties again in 2014. I would say that Page is going to be facing some pretty stiff competition (which will only make it better if he holds on to one or both return jobs). Some of that will come from fresh faces like Charles Sims and Robert Herron. Sims seems to be in the mix for the kickoff return job, while Herron is a candidate on punts. There's a very good chance that both players make the team regardless of their roles in the return game, so Lovie Smith and company can afford to roll the dice on Sims and Herron to see what they can do on special teams.
It's clear from Twitter reactions that expressing any optimism in Carl Nicks' future is akin to claiming you've seen an unidentified flying object. Well, when it comes to Nicks, I choose to believe. In fact, in the hopes that Nicks has many strong NFL years ahead of him and, in the sci-fi spirit of UFOs, I've thought of a nickname for him: The Death Star. Nicks is blot-out-the-sun big like the Death Star. Seriously, he's a big man. And even though the first Death Star met its match in Luke Skywalker, a second one of even greater destructive capabilities was then commissioned. That's my thought here: Death Star II is ready to be re-deployed.
