Honest discussion of struggles.
Last year Bucs cornerback Zyon McCollum’s play really slipped.
Joe didn’t like his body language. At times, McCollum looked like he had thrown in the towel.
KitKat-eating Bucs coach Todd Bowles seemed to be covering for McCollum when Bowles, a couple of times, had an incredulous claim that McCollum’s problem was that he sometimes got bored.
An NFL player being bored? Joe never heard of such a thing, unless a player was so damn dominant that unless he faced an equally talented foe or was in a win-or-die moment, he lost focus.
(John Madden used to say that unless a game was close, Raiders quarterback Kenny Stabler got so bored that after a timeout, Stabler would forget the play before he reached the huddle. But if Stabler was in a close game, Madden said he was unequaled as a locked-in fighter.)
So yesterday after OTA practice, McCollum confessed he at times did get bored.
Bowles has McCollum “focusing on the little details, and he’s been hard on me throughout the summer, and throughout these OTAs, in terms of … always being in a football-ready position,” McCollum said, in his first public chat since the 2025 season.
“If the quarterback is not looking to your side, like still trying to fight [a lack of focus],” he said. “You know there are going to be boring times out there at corner, you know? Sometimes, especially in Bowles’ defense, he dials it up for all types. Everybody’s going to get some action. So when your number is not getting called, you’ve got to hold it down for the rest of the defense.
“Just do your job and fight that boredom.”
It’s wild that an NFL starting corner would admit he gets bored on the field and loses focus if he doesn’t think the quarterback will throw to his side of the field.
Joe applauds McCollum’s candor, but wow. A bored corner?
For some strange reason, the Howard Stern Show skit of impressionist Billy West imitating Larry Fine at Woodstock springs to mind.
Fine/West is trying to sell drugs using the concert’s PA system before Jimi Hendrix takes the stage. Fine/West says, “How about Ritalin? It worked for Curly.”