Voluntary offseason workouts continued on Wednesday at AdventHealth Training Center with over 40 players taking the field for a nearly two-hour practice.
Right now, it's mostly players new to Tampa Bay and those who wanted to get some extra work in at the facility. It's certainly never too early to get acclimated to the Florida heat and this morning was no exception with temperatures in the 90s and humidity hanging in the air. That hasn't stopped each practice from being high energy well into their second week, despite the fact contact isn't allowed at this stage. It's all leading up to next week when the entire team will be together for the first time since winning Super Bowl LV for mandatory minicamp.
While we wait on that, here are few things that happened on Wednesday that stood out.
-Wide receiver Cyril Grayson pulled a double move on a long route to fake out his defender, gaining enough separation to make the catch as quarterback Ryan Griffin aired it out down the field in the first team period.
-Then, it was rookie quarterback Kyle Trask's turn to connect with rookie wide receiver Jaelon Darden down the far sideline for what was likely about a 40-yard pass.
-The offense came out and took one look at the defense in a team period then doubled back into the huddle to change the play. It didn't end up mattering as outside linebacker Cam Gill nabbed himself an interception in the flat. What was even better? His fellow outside linebackers on the sideline were commenting about the particular play as the defense was getting set, saying it required Gill to get to the flat immediately. Sure enough, he did and he made the play. It may have been the play of the week, in fact.
-Grayson wasn't done as he nabbed another deep pass, this time over the middle from Trask, in the seven-on-seven period.
-Second-year running back Ke'Shawn Vaughn spoke last week about his efforts to improve his hands in the receiving game and he showed it in the same seven-on-seven period. He laid out and snatched the ball out of the air right before the sideline. He then got back up quickly and kept running.
-It was Darden that made another leaping grab a few plays later but as he came down, cornerback Nate Brooks ran by and almost impossibly cleanly smacked the ball out of Darden's hands, resulting in an incompletion.
-It looked as though the defense would have had a sack on Trask in the next team period but the play continued because of the fact contact isn't allowed. It didn't end up mattering because then cornerback Antonio Hamilton jumped in front of the receiver after reading the route perfectly and came up with the pass breakup.
-The day ended with a couple situational drills. The first was Trask, starting at his own 25-yard line, attempting to go down the field in 50 seconds with no timeouts. The defense did a great job forcing incompletions via getting their hands up to knock the ball down but a couple long passes followed and the Bucs' offense was able to come up with a field goal. The last scenario was needing a touchdown from the 20-yard-line with 16 seconds on the clock and of course, no timeouts. After an initial completion, Trask spiked the ball and gave the offense one more chance. There was some debate on if the completion to wide receiver Josh Pearson was caught in bounds but it was certainly close.
