ronde.barber@safety.yes

July 09, 2012 at 11:21am by cubsandbucsfan   •  1 Comment »

During the 2010 NFL Season Opener, Ronde intercepted Jake Delhomme and returned the ball all the way down to the 3 yard line.  He didn’t make it to the end zone because Payton Hillis caught him and pushed him out of bounds.  From that moment on, I believe that Ronde was in fact a Safety (we could all see he had lost a step), only playing Corner because, well, the options were limited.  I am not sure the options are much better today, but the options at Safety are even worse and I for one am thrilled to have Ronde and Mark Barron playing Safety for the 2012 Bucs.

I offer 3 examples of players that have made the transition and pulled it off with success-Ronnie Lott, Rod Woodson, and Carnell Lake.  That is pretty good company.  Maybe I am being naive, but Ronde is cut from the same cloth as those 3 guys.  Not as big as Ronnie, not as fast as Woodson, maybe not as athletic at Lake-but enough of all 3 of them where I think this transition will work.  When it comes to football IQ, Ronde is a man among boys-he gets the game.  This is why the thought of drafting Morris Claiborne didn’t concern me at all, Ronde has enough brains for the both of them.  The thought of knowing Ronde as our last line of defense actually brings me tremendous comfort, more so then the idea that he would have to cover Steve Smith or Roddy White or Marquis Colston.

He is the only 25/40 guy in the history of the NFL.  He has more defensive touchdowns than Ed Reed (11 to 9).  He will be rightly Honored when the 2012 NFL Season Opens against Cam Newton and the Panthers.  Not since the John Lynch days have we had a such a capable backstop.