Tampa Bay Buccaneers Wednesday Practice Notes

and , of course, following the preseason training camp news. A couple things…

Benn started making an impact a lot earlier in the season than I thought. He made some clutch catches in the Bengals game. He also had a miscue with Freeman, not picking up a hot read. But he obviously improved as the season went on. I hope he is truly recovered and ready to continue to grow this year. He has great burst after the catch and really ran the smoke routes, bubble screens and end arounds very well.

Mike Williams did have a case of the dropsies, especially early on. He also had a case of fumblitis. Again, they seemed to both get better as the year went on. It sounds like he hasn’t dropped anything that’s come close to him so far in practice this year. Looks like he may be even better this year.

Blount has a wicked quick side-step to avoid first contact, but it got him in trouble a lot as well, as he should have just hit the hole instead of dance around or cut outside. And I’m not just talking about the 4th down play. I hope they’re working on that with him as well as his pass reads and routes and blitz pickups.

Earnest Graham still has it. Whenever he touched the ball, he performed well. I’m not worried at all about our 3rd down back so long as it’s Graham. Still sad to see Caddy go. And there’s no way (based on last years limited time) that Lumpkin should be considered a viable 2nd RB or 3rd down back. He had zero success last year on any of his attempts.

Quincy Black may not be the best blitzing LB, even though that’s the way they were scheming the defense. But he does have an uncanny ability to jump at just the right time to knock down passes on his way to the QB.

Gerald McCoy looked like he had a great first step, but watching him run after QBs, it looked like he couldn’t catch Brad Johnson in a 40 yard dash. Maybe him slimming down this year will help his top end speed as well. Brian Price in his limited time last year was always pushing the line toward the QB unless he was double teamed. Hope he recovers, guys a beast.

EJ Biggers doesn’t tackle, he dives at feet, they need to work on that, but in coverage he’s on the receivers hip almost every time. Even against Calvin Johnson he had decent coverage, but Megatron knows how to block out well (wonder if he played basketball?) It also looked like he was starting to get better jumps on the pass as the season went on. Could lead to more INTs for him. Here’s hoping.

Ronde is ageless. I stopped counting at about 6, but Talib got beat deep quite a bit (although one of those I think he was expecting Sabby to be helping over the top…. what was he thinking???). Ronde? I’ve yet to see him really get burned by a WR in last year’s games. He’s ridiculous in the run game, making tackles in the backfield from the backside…. Keep it going Ronde!

Anyway. The point of this is that I think there’s a real reason to be optimistic this season. We didn’t get FAs to improve, but looking at how certain players improved from week 1 to week 17 during the season, it’s hard to think they can’t continue to improve through camp and pre-season and be a better team this year…

I have heard the knee is looking good, but how is he doing? Is he looking like the once possible No. 1 pick, or is he looking like he still recovering a bit?