Arians, Winston talk receivers, secondary, and OL confidence after Day 2 of minicamp

Day 2 of Buccaneers minicamp is in the books and it appears the team continues to improve in practices under new head coach Bruce Arians. While many eyes may be on new defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, there are many other things going on.

On Wednesday, Arians and quarterback Jameis Winston spoke to the media. Below are some highlights from their media sessions.

Head Coach Bruce Arians

On if there are certain ‘boxes’ Arians wants to ‘check’ at every practice

“Oh yeah, we put our guys in specific situations every day just, so we become a smarter football team, because you never know when they’re going to happen in the beginning. Today, 22 seconds, no timeouts. Back at the eight with two timeouts. Every day it’s a different, ‘must-win’ the game scenario, offensively and defensively, so that we become a smarter team.”

On Arians’ confidence level in the offensive line

“It should be really good. We’ve had one or two guys miss quite a bit. So, about five guys haven’t been out on the field together, which I’d like to see some chemistry that way, but we have plenty of time when we put the pads on to get that done. You can see they’re seeing every blitz known to man that they’ve seen this spring and you see them starting to see it pop where their coming from and it’s not easy to pick up. I’ve been down this road with Todd once before and it’s tough on the offense the first time around.”

On how much DL Ndamukong Suh is going to help get the defensive line in shape

“Well, a lot more in pads. Right now, he’s a smart player. He’s going to get to training camp healthy. So, yeah, it’s going to be one-on-one. It’s going to be a battle and all those things that he adds and brings will definitely. You want to go best against best, which we’ll do a ton in training camp, so we’ll all get better.”

On how confident Arians is with the secondary

“With the number of balls they’re touching, the communication – I’m hearing a lot of communication and like I said, we’ve got a five corners, three or four safeties and now I think we have three rookies, that’s a unique situation. I don’t give a [care] if they’re rookies, these guys can play. They’re getting their hands on a lot of balls. They’re doing things that veterans do, because they listen and their smart. The veterans are helping them out and they’ve got very good coaching.

On what Arians has liked from WR Scotty Miller so far

“His competitiveness. He’s jumped out there and he’s made a play in every practice, whether it’s in the red zone [or] all the way down the field. We had a miscommunication today – had him deep. So yeah, he’s bringing speed, but he’s bringing a lot of compassion to this game.”

On how much Arians attributes the players getting their hands on balls to their performance

“It’s mostly them and quarterbacks learning new systems tend to look too long where they want to throw the ball and guys are breaking and making plays. Some are poor receiver [plays]. Quarterback trusts his receiver and he doesn’t win. He’s the one-on-one, he’s got to win. So, a couple of them are that way, but yeah the DBs are playing really well.”

On CB Sean Murphy-Bunting and the other rookies

“Very, very mature. Very, very bright guy. All those guys we drafted are very bright, very mature and have picked it up extremely fast, which is unusual for rookies. But, these guys are all very, very mature players.”

Quarterback Jameis Winston

On which receivers have stood out

“Everybody. Everybody is showing up to work every single day. Like Jenna was saying, our defensive backs, especially our young defensive backs, they’ve been challenging them well. So, it’s good that everybody’s stepped up to the challenge and some guys that are fighting through injuries themselves are still playing.”

On Winston’s impressions of WR Scotty Miller

“Scotty’s been phenomenal. Very, very quick and fast. When you lose a guy like Adam Humphries, it’s hard to fill that role, but Scotty’s doing everything he can to fill that spot.”

On guys not being able to practice with WR Mike Evans yet

“Well, when you don’t have Mike Evans out there it’s challenging. Mike is the jack of all trades. So, those guys haven’t had a chance to face him much. So, we got to put some more fear in their hearts.”

On how it’s been building chemistry with WR Breshad Perriman

“Oh, it’s been excellent man. He’s been doing a phenomenal job taking the top off the defenses and making some clutch catches, contested catches as well. All of our guys are doing really, really well. We just have to put the pieces together and execute.”