Rookie safety Troy Warner is among the four players on the practice squad that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are protecting in Week 14. The Buccaneers' active roster is currently a bit thin at safety, with Jordan Whitehead sidelined by a calf injury and Mike Edwards in the middle of a three-game suspension.
The Buccaneers had submitted the exact some protection list in each of the previous three weeks but one of the four players on that list, wide receiver Breshad Perriman, has since been promoted to the active roster. Warner takes Perriman's spot and the other three protections remain the same: kicker Jose Borregales, tight end Darren Fells and cornerback Blidi Wreh-Wilson. The Buccaneers also protected Warner in Week Three and Weeks Five through Eight.
The 6-1, 200-pound Warner, who is the brother of San Francisco All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner, originally entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Los Angeles Rams in May. He played in all three preseason games for Los Angeles and notched six tackles plus one stop on special teams. Warner played his college ball at BYU and finished his career with 120 tackles and two interceptions.
The option to protect a limited number of practice squad players from being signed away by other teams was one of a number of new rules adopted regarding the practice squad in 2020 to give teams more roster flexibility during the pandemic. The NFL elected to keep those rules in place for 2021.
Each week, a team can submit a list of up to four players on its practice squad that other teams are prohibited from signing to their active rosters. In most weeks, that protection starts at 4:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday and extends through game day. No players are protected for close to two days following a game, so every practice squad player in the league still has an opportunity each week to sign with another team's active roster.
