The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were pleased to get their three specialists off the reserve/COVID-19 list and back in practice on Friday. However, it appears they are still being cautious with the situation.
Punter Bradley Pinion, kicker Ryan Succop and long-snapper Zach Triner were all activated back to the 53-man roster but the Buccaneers also made a handful of moves to provide redundancy at all of those positions. First, kicker Greg Joseph was elevated from the practice squad along with guard Ted Larsen, making both available for Sunday's game in Atlanta. Both Joseph and Larsen were elevated as COVID replacements, which means the team still has two more elevations available to them for Sunday's game if they choose to use them.
Those moves opened two spots on the Bucs' 16-man practice squad and they were immediately filled by the signings of punter Dustin Colquitt and long-snapper Garrison Sanborn.
Joseph has been on the Buccaneers' practice squad the entire season and has also been one of the players the team protected each week to make sure another team did not sign him to their active roster. He has played in 16 regular season games with Tennessee and Cleveland and has made 17 of his 20 field goal attempts plus 34 of 38 extra point tries. Larsen joined the Buccaneers practice squad on December 8, returning to the team for which he played his first four seasons (2010-13). He has played in 137 games with 88 starts, including two seasons with Bruce Arians' Arizona Cardinals in his next stop after Tampa.
Originally a third-round draft pick by Kansas City in 2005, Colquitt spent 15 years as the Chiefs' punter, only missing two games in that span. He has 1,144 career punts, with a career average of 44.8 yards per kick, and he made the Pro Bowl following the 2012 and 2016 seasons. Most recently, he spent five games as the Pittsburgh Steelers' punter earlier this season, averaging 43.1 yards on 20 attempts. His brother, Britton Colquitt, is the punter for the Minnesota Vikings.
Sanborn knew how to find the AdventHealth Training Center, as he spent the 2017 and 2018 seasons – his ninth and 10th in the NFL – handling the Buccaneers' long-snapping duties. He spent his first eight seasons with the Buffalo Bills and did not miss a game during his first decade in the NFL. Last season, he had a three-game stint as the San Francisco 49ers' long-snapper. Sanborn played his high school football at Jesuit, which is within walking distance of the Buccaneers' headquarters and Raymond James Stadium.
