As we enter into Week 4 of the preseason, the schedule around One Buc Place gets much more normalized. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers treat the final week of the preseason as if it were a regular season week, media access wise, and with that came the first chance for us to get an open locker room period before practice.

It was a quiet locker room period, for the most part, but we did get to ask Bucs tight end O.J. Howard about his offensive pass interference penalty from the Lions game. While watching live, it didn’t appear like Howard did much wrong, and after the play, that’s what Howard thought, too.

The ref told him that it just looked like a penalty because Howard was so much bigger and stronger than the defender, which is pretty B.S.

Hopefully those kinds of phantom calls don’t follow Howard around, if unwarranted.

On the injury front, there were no unexpected serious injuries to report, but there were some pleasant surprises for guys who returned from injury.

Defensive tackle Beau Allen was back on the practice field, as was Leonard Wester for the first time in a few week. Safety Justin Evans was back at practice, which was very encouraging since we didn’t know how long his foot injury was going to hold him out for — turned out not too long.

Still no defensive tackle Vita Vea at practice. However, head coach Dirk Koetter said Vea is still “on track” with his recovery.

Along with confirming a few of the guys back from injury, Koetter also talked about cornerback Vernon Hargreaves and how he’s become a vocal leader on the team.

With Grimes being more of a quiet type, it’s good to see Hargreaves is confident enough to be a vocal guy. Hopeful that turns into good performances this season.