Defensive Depth Eroding

November 11, 2009 at 09:12am by Scott   •  No Comments »

Yesterday, the Bucs put backup linebacker Rod Wilson on injured reserve, which is the same way he spent most of last year with the Bears. In addition to that, Will Allen just had surgery on his thumb and will likely end up on injured reserve in the near future.

The team has players at both positions to fill in the gaps, but it’s going to start getting thin pretty soon. Adam Hayward or Niko Koutouvides (probably Hayward) will step up to replace Wilson at linebacker, but the only safety left on the roster is Corey Lynch. Lynch had a nice play in the Green Bay game, tipping a pass to Aqib Talib for an interception, but Lynch is also no stranger to injured reserve, having spent time there with the Bengals. There are no safeties on the practice squad, so I would guess there will be some shuffling of that group to get a guy there just in case something happens to another safety. Either that, or they can just shut their eyes real tight and hope it all works out. That’s what I usually do.