STEVEN M. SIPPLE / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:00 pm
Ah, the exalted and pampered life of an NFL player.
“Tampa Bay probably has the worst facilities in the NFL — probably worse than Lincoln Southeast,” said Barrett Ruud, a former Knight and Husker standout linebacker who last week completed his rookie season with the Buccaneers.
Because he was a rookie, one of Ruud’s daily chores was to help put into place temporary walls that divided up a room for position meetings. He also was in charge of supplying candy for veterans. Starbursts and Skittles were favorites among linebackers.
“A little sugar for Derrick (Brooks) and Shelton (Quarles) to help them stay awake,” said Ruud, referring lightheartedly to Tampa Bay’s gifted veteran linebackers.
The minor inconveniences were of little bother, Ruud said. After all, it’s the NFL, which beats 8-to-5 work, he said. Plus, Tampa Bay was his favorite team growing up.
Ruud heard other people ominously refer to a “rookie wall” that some young NFL players encounter, but he didn’t hit it, he said.
The 6-foot-1, 240-pound Ruud, Nebraska’s all-time leading tackler, was a fixture on Tampa Bay’s special teams while also playing backup middle linebacker behind the 34-year-old Quarles, the team’s leading tackler. Ruud finished the season with 17 tackles — he once recorded 19 in a single game for the Huskers — and added one fumble recovery.
After finishing with an 11-5 record during the regular season, Tampa Bay dropped a wild-card playoff game to Washington last week despite allowing only 120 yards of total offense.
Ruud, a second-round NFL Draft selection, plans to relax in Lincoln for several weeks. He said he soon will begin workouts with Nebraska head strength coach Dave Kennedy before returning to Tampa in March.
“Your rookie year is a long, rough year,” Ruud said. “This is the first time I’ve had to relax in quite awhile. But I think the season went well. Everyone tells you that your first year is the toughest. After that, it keeps getting better.”
Ruud’s most challenging adjustments didn’t necessarily occur on the field. He lived away from his hometown for the first time and missed it at times, he said. A bachelor, Ruud had friends on the team, but many were married with families. What’s more, a few of his friends were cut from the squad during the season.
He would’ve liked to play more golf, but a sprained ankle made it difficult. He said he spent a lot of time in his condominium surfing the Internet and gliding through television channels.
“It was kind of tough, going home and being bored after practice,” he said.
Nevertheless, Ruud enjoyed learning the nuances of Tampa Bay’s vaunted “Cover-2” defense. At its core, the Cover-2 features a four-man rush with five players underneath and two defensive backs playing deep. Although it sounds relatively easy, Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, a former Husker player and coach, demands precision.
“He’s amazing,” Ruud said of Kiffin. “He’ll walk into the meeting room talking about a play your opponent might run based on something he saw them run five weeks ago.”
Ruud said he prefers the Cover-2 to, say, the 3-4 alignment used by some teams, including the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. In a 3-4 alignment, linebackers often take on the blocks of offensive linemen, while Tampa Bay’s four-lineman set typically frees linebackers to make plays, Ruud said.
“We don’t have a ton of calls — it’s not like some teams that have 50 different coverages,” Ruud said. “But the defenses we do run, we have to know them inside and out.”
Tampa Bay finished atop the NFL in total defense for the second time in the last four years. Ruud was particularly impressed by the veterans’ knowledge of the game. At the sport’s highest level, one false step can take you out of a play, meaning intelligence is at a premium, along with extreme athleticism, he said.
Compared to college, “Everyone’s a little better and everyone’s a little smarter, which means you can’t make mistakes,” he said.
Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.