The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have re-signed cornerback Ross Cockrell to a two-year deal through 2023. Cockrell, who started out his 2020 campaign on the Buccaneers practice squad, played in a total of 12 regular season games last year. The 29-year-old took the field as a starter on two separate occasions during the season.
Cockrell’s Overall Stats
Although his efforts by no means qualified as overly impressive, Cockrell served as an important and reliable backup in the Buccaneers secondary. The cornerback ended up tallying 11 tackles and one pass deflection throughout the course of the season, playing his best football when key secondary players such as Carlton Davis went down to injury. His time on the field saw a significant increase during the season’s home stretch, as he registered 270 snaps in the last ten games of the year for Tampa Bay.
Now, he’ll have the chance to assist the secondary yet again in returning Tampa to the promised land.
Bruce Arians: “Jason Licht did such a great job adding pieces as we went along – Rob Gronkowski, Leonard Fournette, Antonio Brown, and other guys. And Ross Cockrell has been one of the best pickups we’ve had the entire season.”
Buccaneers Have Strong Stability in Secondary
Before you get carried away, Cockrell will likely see limitations in his playing time next season. He’s still arguably only the 4th most important cornerback on the roster. Carlton Davis, Jamel Dean, and Sean Murphy-Bunting will all see a return next year, meaning the Buccaneers already have plenty of stability. Of course Ryan Smith won’t be returning, as he’s off to LA. Still though, Cockrell’s signing will mainly serve as a worst-case scenario.
Concluding Thoughts
Overall, it’s unlikely that multiple key contributors will go down at a time. Then again, it happened last year, so it can happen this year too.
Either way, the Buccaneers should be perfectly ready defensively for 2021. Now, all it takes is hard work and dedication.