Dave Moore could end up with stronger shoulders than he had before his 2003 injury

(Editor's Note: On March 3, tight end Dave Moore signed with the Buccaneers, the first of nearly 20 new players to join the team in first month of free agency. Moore, a Buccaneer from 1992-2001, is back for his second stint in Tampa after two seasons with the Buffalo Bills. An avid fisherman, Moore also makes his home in the Bay area – on the water, of course – and he is thus in the perfect position to follow the team's 16-week offseason program to the letter. Beginning with the first week of April – the third week of the program and the onset of concurrent 'organized team activity' days – Moore began providing a weekly look at how he is preparing for the 2004 season. The series will run through July, before players take one more short vacation prior to training camp.)

Week of April 19-25

The main progress I've made over the last week is with my shoulder. It's definitely getting stronger, thanks to the rehab. I can tell when I do my shoulder and chest exercises in the weight room. I can get more weight up each week, and do more reps.

I've pretty much got the mobility back. I played with (an injured shoulder) for half of last season, so mobility was never the biggest problem anyway. Now it's a matter of getting the strength back, and that's coming along very well. I can tell the difference between today and just a week ago.

In terms of rehabbing the shoulder, you mostly concentrate on the rotator cuff, with external rotations and things like that. There are also scapula exercises and some other rehab exercises. That's really just a matter of getting them done…you don't increase weight or anything like that. Where you really notice the difference in strength is when you do a shoulder press or a lateral raise, anything with your rear delt. During those exercises is when you see if you're making improvement or not.

I'm happy with where I am right now. I think there's a good chance that, when it's all said and done, I'll actually have more strength in my shoulders than I did before the injury. Historically, when you concentrate on a particular area, especially a joint like the shoulder, as complicated as it is, you'll find that you end up stronger in that area than you were before you were hurt. Rehab makes you pay attention to a bunch of small muscles that you normally wouldn't put a lot of emphasis on during your workouts. By working on those muscles that I hadn't worked on before, I'm making the whole area stronger.

I've also been doing some work on my long-snapping, which is one of the things they may want me to do around here at some point. I did it here in Tampa for years and it's a skill I still have.

When I went up to Buffalo (in 2002), they had me long-snapping when I first got there, but they actually had a guy to do it, so I didn't snap for long. But I've always been able to long-snap, and I still can. The old saying in the NFL is, 'The more you can do, the longer you'll be around.'

If you can do it, you can do it. But it's just like anything else if you haven't done it in awhile. Obviously, you need to practice it to get your location and your accuracy down, but the ability is still there. It's something I need to work on on a weekly basis, to get my skills honed up.

It's not really a matter of losing speed on the snap. You just won't be quite as accurate. It needs to be at the point where you can do it in your sleep.

And I enjoy snapping. We're not having any organized practices or anything on the field during these weeks, but if the kickers are working, I'll come over to help with the long-snapping.

I'm also one week further along in learning this offense, knowing what I'm supposed to do and learning how to do it. These weeks now, we're just concentrating on details and routes, how they're supposed to be run and what the coaches expect in terms of technique. I've got a better handle on it this week; I'm sure I'll be even better a week from now.