TAMPA, Fla. — What a week for Richard Sherman.
After signing with Tampa Bay on Wednesday, he earns his first start with the team on Sunday.
Seems exciting, right?
"It took a lot of hours of just going back and forth. A lot of questions that may have been dumb for other guys to ask, but I didn’t know," Sherman said about his week of preparation.
Originally, Sherman thought he was going to make his Buccaneers debut against Miami, but with the secondary suffering through so many injuries, the team felt like they could not wait another week to deploy their new weapon.
“I know from recent history from watching Sherm that he’s a ball player," Linebacker Shaquil Barrett said. "Him being out there instantly makes our team better. And for him to come out there and play 58 out of 59 snaps is crazy and the way he held it down was amazing. I’m glad that he’s on our team.”
Injuries are part of the business and Sherman understands what the team has to do moving forward.
“You’re only as strong as your weakest link. You have to make sure everybody is prepared. You have to treat everybody as important. You don’t sit there and prioritize guys on your team. Everybody is important."
Bruce Arians said, "It’s the next man up and that’s why we have a roster and you build that roster with depth. You know injuries are going to happen. Last year was a very lucky year that we lost three or four guys in different positions, but hopefully, we’ll get some of them back as we continue to get through the season.”
Nobody on this roster will make any excuses and the Bucs are just trying to control what they can control entering Sunday's matchup with Miami.
“The number one thing (we need to work on) would be mental errors. Communication errors, which shouldn’t be hard because we’re at home," Arians said. "Receivers hearing audibles and things like that that we messed up on the road this week. But we eliminated the pre-snap penalties."
Offensively speaking, the head coach believes the offense has not reached its full potential and wide receiver Chris Godwin agrees.
"I think the great thing about football is it’s a long season, and as you saw last year, it takes a while to kind of build things up. Obviously, we don’t want it to take that long this year. But I think with the guys we have on our team and the experience we have, I’m confident that as the year progresses, we will continue to get better, cut down on the penalties, cut down on the mental errors and just start to find our groove and figure out exactly what we want to be as an offense.”
Despite the injuries and inconsistent execution, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 3-1 and might not face a winning team until December when they square off against the Buffalo Bills.