Ronde Barber- Father Time heading into his 15th Season

As the lights at Raymond James Stadium remain dark like most every other stadium in the NFL, players all over the league are still getting ready for another tedious NFL season.  One of the toughest things in sports especially football is longevity. Being able to play the game at a high level for many years in the National Football League is a rare feat. The average career in the NFL is between three to six years depending on where you get your facts from, so to eclipse that you must be a special player. Few players can maintain a high level of performance game in and game out over numerous seasons. One man that has found the path to the fountain of youth is Tampa Bay’s own Ronde Barber. Heading into his 15^th year as a Buccaneer, Barber sure isn’t slowing down.

2010 was yet another impressive year for Ronde. Barber racked up 102 tackles, 3 interceptions, one sack, 9 tackles for loss, and one forced fumble. He also recorded a team high 16 passes defensed. While most Bucs fans probably had Josh Freeman as the team MVP, Mark Dominick, the GM for the Bucs, thinks Barber was just as impressive. “If you want to talk about how Josh Freeman played at the end of the season, I think you could say the same thing about how Ronde Barber played at the end of the season,” said Dominick in January. “For as many years as he has in the National Football League, to play at the level and to feel like he already knew what Drew Brees was going to do on a majority of plays, was phenomenal. I was really impressed with the way he played in that 2010 season”.

So after a very productive 2010 season there was some question whether or not Barber would return.  The Bucs were able to convince him to play at least another year so he signed a one-year contract to continue his Buccaneer career. Heading into year 15 Barber has some big goals to continue playing for. If Ronde Barber is on the field in September for the Bucs first game against the Detroit Lions, He will be the first Tampa Bay Buccaneer to play in 15 different seasons. Along with that, if he can play all 16 games he will break Derrick Brooks’s record for most games played as a Buccaneer at 225. As most Bucs fans know Barber is in the NFL record books as the only player ever with 40 interceptions and 25 sacks, But if Ronde is able to get 4 more sacks this coming year he’ll join Rodney Harrison and Ray Lewis in the 30 interception/ 30 sack club. Barber is also the Bucs leader in interceptions with 40 and returned touchdowns with 14, so another year will only allow him to add to those totals and solidify himself as one of the greatest Buccaneers ever along with Derrick Brooks and Lee Roy Selmon.

While Ronde Barber was selected to be on the all decade team for the 2000’s with Ty Law, Charles Woodson, and Champ Bailey as defensive backs, there are still many critics out there who feel barber was the product of the cover 2 system or is simply a system player. Many of these critics also point out that he played with 2 future Hall of Famer’s in Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp and possibly another in John Lynch. Some of these critics believe those reasons could keep Barber out of the Hall himself.  Another productive season or two could go a long way to proving those critics wrong as Brooks, Sapp, and Lynch have all been gone for quite some time now. While Raheem plays a little cover 2 still, it certainly is not the base defense that the Bucs predominantly use now so it would help put an end to that argument. If Barber is able to play at the level he is accustomed to for 2011 and possibly 2012 and help this young Bucs team get into the playoffs it sure will be tough for those same critics to keep Barber out of the Hall of Fame. This should be all Buccaneer Nations pleasure to watch one of our greatest finish out his career on a high note and hopefully help usher in this new group of Future Buc greats to the playoffs and beyond.