Bucs teammates rush to celebrate with Rueben Bain after he takes down Aaron Rodgers for the Bucs rookie’s first career sack.
Now Joe isn’t saying no other Bucs player does what Bucs rookie outside linebacker Rueben Bain does before each game. But it’s the first time Joe has seen it.
In the Bucs’ locker room at The Licht House, Bucs players are just temporary residents. Their lockers have to be cleaned out after each game.
So it’s not uncommon for a player to leave after the game carrying a bag. (The Bucs have duffle bags for each player and if the player doesn’t feel like hauling stuff out, they just shove everything into their duffle bag, and a staffer brings the bag back to One Buc Palace for them.)
As Joe waited for Bain after the Bucs lost to the Steelers, Joe noticed Bain packing up his belongings. Among those was a notebook that Bain slid into a backpack.
Joe had never seen a player carry around a notebook after a game before. So when Bain had a moment, Joe asked him about the notebook.
Yeah, it’s the same notebook he takes notes in all week long in meetings in preparation for an opponent. Bain told Joe it’s not unusual for him to be going over his notes right up to the time the Bucs take the field for game introductions.
> “Trying to be prepared all the way up to kickoff,” Bain told Joe.
That impressed Joe. It shows Bain takes his craft very seriously.
Well, all of that preparation on the Steelers and their drama queen quarterback Aaron Rodgers paid off as Bain recorded the first sack of what Joe hopes turns out to be a career where the Bucs hang his name up in the Ring of Honor 15-20 years from now.
> “I kept climbing the mountain,” Bain said of the sack. “Finally got to the top. Honestly, man, I just had an opportunity and I seized it.”
He sure did. And he had a little motivation from his “brother” from college, Bucs nickel corner/safety Keionte Scott. Earlier in the loss to the Steelers, Scott rocked Rodgers to the point Rodgers stayed down a while.
Bain admitted seeing Scott get his first NFL sack helped light a fire under him.
> “I told him, he motivated me to make that play,” Bain said. “Once I saw him get his, I had to lock in and get mine.”
And that’s exactly why the Bucs drafted Bain and Scott. What they did last Sunday is what they did in so many games for the Hurricanes in college.
It was good to see Bain break out. Finally. Joe thought he had noticed Bain playing more with his hand in the dirt as opposed to standing up, which he seemed to mostly do in previous games.
Joe asked Bain about his hand-in-the-dirt snaps and Bain told Joe that he wasn’t seeing things.
> “Yeah, I’ve been switching it up,” Bain said. “Just trying to give it a different routine. Give people a little bit of a different look than what we had.
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> “More of a play discretion thing. Getting it switched up to see how my body feels at the moment.”
Joe hopes Bain continues to do that. Joe believes Bain’s best trait is the way he physically takes over a bout. Coming out of a three-point stance seems to give Bain more power and leverage than he does in a two-point stance (standing up).
It appears more difficult to do a Reggie White hump move standing up than coming at a blocker from a three-point stance with some leverage behind you.