The Bucs got one of their key defenders back when they took the practice fields at the AdventHealth Training Center Friday morning. Second-year cornerback Benjamin Morrison, who has been dealing with a hamstring injury since OTAs, rejoined Tampa Bay after remaining sidelined the first two days of training camp.

Morrison wasn’t warming up with the team to begin training camp Wednesday morning and was instead seen working off to the side with a trainer early on, though he later made his way over to the first field and watched along with his jersey on and his helmet in hand.

After that initial training camp practice, head coach Todd Bowles had a short update on the young cornerback’s status.

“He’s just still working on his hamstring a little bit,” Bowles said. “But he’s day-by-day.”

Morrison wasn’t seen early on in Thursday’s practice either, but then joined the team on the field once again. At the very most, the 2025 second-round pick had been a limited participant thus far in camp, though the scale may lean more toward non-participant.

That changed Friday, as Morrison was seen — in his No. 21 jersey and shells — warming up with the whole team at the start of practice, indicating that he’d be making a return on the third day of camp. Given the nature of hamstring injuries, the fact that Morrison has such a history with them and the importance of getting him to the season healthy, you’d expect Tampa Bay to bring him along gradually.

With that said, he has some catching up to do after missing so much camp and preseason time as a rookie and then missing more time this past summer. Every rep he can get right now will only help.

Benjamin Morrison Now Set To Compete For Bucs’ CB2 Role

Now that Morrison is back at practice, the battle for the Bucs’ No. 2 cornerback role can really get underway.

Morrison’s fellow 2025 draft pick, Jacob Parrish, would seem to have the edge in the race to start on the opposite side of Zyon McCollum. Parrish, a third-round pick, started at the nickel position for Tampa Bay last year, but team leadership made it clear this offseason that he would have an opportunity to compete for a starting outside cornerback role.

Challenge No. 1 for Morrison will be to stay healthy throughout camp. He missed time last August, then played in just 10 out of 17 games in his rookie season. He had four passes defensed and zero interceptions in those 10 games (three starts), earning a 47.0 overall grade from PFF with a 50.0 grade in coverage and a 35.5 mark in run defense. His 40.3 tackling grade wasn’t pretty either. And over 40 targets, he allowed 23 catches (57.5%) for 344 yards (15.0 avg.) and three touchdowns.

Following that up by missing some of OTAs and mini-camp couldn’t have helped his case, but now that he’s back, he has a new start.

Bucs CB Benjamin Morrison – Photo by: IMAGN Images

From there, it’s on Morrison to get up to speed and be the type of cornerback he was at Notre Dame — the type that had him in conversations to be a first-round pick before his hip injury. That player is still in there, and he needs to show up and get his Bucs career off the ground in 2026.

Because even if Morrison doesn’t win the No. 2 corner job over Parrish, the Bucs will still be heavily depending on him this season. There’s next to no depth at corner, so whether he’s No. 2 or No. 3, Morrison is an important player to this Buccaneers defense.