Linebackers

And yes, the fun continues as we look at the Linebackers. This year's team appears to be rather deep at the Linebacker position. The starters still appear to be Brooks, Quarles, and Nece. Backing them up will be Winborn, Ruud, and Cooper. All three backups could combine to be a starting linebacking corps on many teams. Cooper is the weakest of the group, but seems to continue to improve. Right now he seems to be backing up the Sam spot instead of the Will, as Winborn is a better Will linebacker, and a very good one at that. If Winborn can stay healthy, which has been his only negative during his career, he could become a very good Wil for the Bucs and a possible replacement for Brooks if they don't draft a better player.

Ruud continues to push Quarles at the Mike spot, and looks awefully good. Ruud could end up being, in a couple of years, every bit as good as Quarles. But the one thing Ruud has over Quarles is size. Speaking of Quarles, we saw his play elevate to a new level last year after two sub-par seasons. I don't know if it was him getting healthy, or the new competition for his spot, but he's turned it up a notch and doesn't appear to be ready to let Ruud take the Mike spot away, at least not yet. Brooks is, of course, Brooks. With the current conditioning program, I have a feeling we'll see Brooks regain a little bit of his speed, and be as effective as ever. Age is slowly catching up, but he found a way to overcome it last year, and the new conditioning program seems to be helping a lot of players get quicker and in better shape, so I'm thinking we may see Brooks performing close to peak all season again. Nece is Nece, and will continue to do a solid job at the Sam spot. I would like to see Cooper push him more, but that hasn't happened yet, and Nece seems to have plateaued a bit. But the Sam spot only requires that the player be solid, which Nece has been.

Overall I expect to see a similar, or slightly better performance from this group than last year simply because of the combination of effective competition and a better conditioning program that emphasizes quickness and endurance more than in prior years under Giemont. Should be interesting to see how much longer Quarles can hold Ruud off. If Ruud gets to be good enough, I'd almost like to see Quarles moved back to Sam on normal downs with Ruud at Mike, then take Ruud off in nickel packages leaving Quarles in there. That would be a stellar group. But, nevertheless, I expect this group will help to continue to establish the Bucs' dominance on the defensive side of the ball.