After a day indoors on Thursday, the Bucs were back outside under the Tampa Bay sun for their Friday practice.

But, even though the sun was out, there were still some things in the dark, mainly the status of Buccaneers starting cornerback Brent Grimes.

Grimes missed his third straight day of practice, and we still haven’t been told exactly why. We were told it was a minor injury and that it isn’t serious. Grimes has been out on the field watching practice with the team, but with no specifications, we aren’t sure when he’ll return to action.

Of the players that were out there, rookie cornerback Carlton Davis made his presence known from start to finish.

It started off with the fun little clip shown above where Davis was dancing during positional warm ups. This may seem like a pointless, minor observance, but it does show some qualities worth noting. For one, it shows that Davis is comfortable. It shows he’s loose and that he feels like he can be himself already. And on another note it shows confidence and swagger. Those traits absolutely translate to the field.

See what we mean?

Davis has been filling in as the starting outside cornerback during Grimes absence and Davis has performed very well in that role. Sometimes veterans being held out of practice can be a blessing in disguise. For Davis to get playing time against the like of Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, thats’ definitely a blessing — as is Davis showing he can already hang with them.

But it wasn’t just the first team that was showing their stuff on defense on Friday.

The Bucs opened up practice with a 1-minute drill, and while the first-team offense did get a field goal out of the first-team defense, the second and third string units held firm and barely allowed any yards at all, not to mention shut the second and third-string offenses down completely.

Linebacker Nigel Harris was one of the players lower on the depth chart that was making some plays out there, including the one shown above where he broke up a pass deep down the field.

Though the offense got the better of the defense during the one-on-one portions of practice, when it came to 7-on-7 and 11-on-11, the defense didn’t back down from the challenge.

We’ll be back tomorrow, as will a flood of Bucs fans, for Saturday’s open practice.