FAB 4. Release Of Hargreaves Ignited Bucs’ Secondary

The development of Tampa Bay’s secondary can be traced back to three things.

Critical post-game comments by head coach Bruce Arians after losses at New Orleans – in which he called the secondary soft – and also at Tennessee – in which he said that the young DBs needed to get their heads out of their asses.

And the last thing was the sudden and shocking release of cornerback Vernon Hargreaves III, who was the team’s first-round pick in 2016. No, the release of Hargreaves wasn’t necessarily meant to send a message to the locker room.

Bucs CB Vernon Hargreaves III – Photo by: Mary Holt/PR

It was to get rid of a player who wasn’t playing up to the standards that were trying to be set by Arians, defensive coordinator Todd Bowles and cornerbacks coach Kevin Ross. Hargreaves wasn’t a bad guy, he just didn’t always give maximum effort, and that can be traced to his upbringing in the organization.

Several Bucs veterans told me that the play of former Bucs cornerback Brent Grimes was embarrassing and that the defense often felt like it was playing with 10 players because of Grimes’ obvious disinterest in tackling and playing so far off wide receivers. Grimes was Hargreaves’ mentor by default because he was the elder statesman of the cornerback room at the AdventHealth Training Center.

Grimes should have been benched or cut during his final season last year because he was play was horrifically bad in some games, but with general manager Jason Licht and head coach Dirk Koetter trying to save their jobs as the team was spiraling towards another 5-11 season, the last thing they wanted to do was to have Grimes’ mouthy wife, Miko, run to the media and dish dirt on the team from inside the locker room. Licht and Koetter were backed into a corner and had no choice but to let it ride out for the rest of the season

But Licht learned his lesson and didn’t hesitate to cut Hargreaves at midseason when he and the coaching staff felt that the 11th overall pick in the 2016 draft was holding the development of the young secondary players back. Licht did so, knowing that his reputation as a drafter would take a massive hit.

Yet Licht has shown that time and again he’s willing to move on from personnel mistakes as quickly as possible – with the exception of Grimes for the reason stated above – for the good of the team and not necessarily his own career or reputation.

Bucs CB Vernon Hargreaves III – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

“The crazy thing was how it happened and when it happened,” Bucs defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches said. “The way things were going, if we want to be honest with it, you kind of saw it coming. But to have it happen after the trade deadline – he was still a great player, just maybe he wasn’t the man-to-man player. Just to part ways with him and he was a top pick, it was kind of like mind-boggling in a sense.

“But I think it was one of the best moves for the organization just for a lot of guys that come here, being so highly drafted. You’re not guaranteed anything, and for them to actually wake up and realize that ‘Man, this is surreal. It could happen to me, I could be that next guy.’ It was a great wake-up [call] for the young guys, and look how they’re playing now? I loved it. I think it was great timing – it wasn’t too late, it wasn’t too soon.”

Several other Bucs players I spoke with feel the same as Nunez-Roches, they just didn’t want to go on the record. One player told me that Tampa Bay outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul is pretty cool with the current guys in the locker room now that Hargreaves is gone, but that his previous outbursts in the media this year and last year where he vented about effort, but stopped short of naming names were really about the lack of effort of Grimes and Hargreaves.

One of the reasons why Hargreaves was released was due to his lack of top effort, but the other was that he was taking playing time away from third-round pick Jamel Dean and stunting his growth. The team currently views Carlton Davis as the team’s top cover cornerback and rookie Sean Murphy-Bunting as the best nickel corner, and felt that Dean had a big upside when healthy.

But with the team almost obligated to play Hargreaves due to his salary, his draft status and the fact that the Bucs had picked up his fifth-year option in 2020 as a precaution in case Hargreaves finally lived up to his draft billing, that left no playing time for Dean, whom the front office viewed as having far greater potential and being a better fit in Bowles’ press-man scheme due to his 6-foot-1 frame, his 4.35 speed and long arms.

Bucs CB Jamel Dean – Photo by: Getty Images

Since Hargreaves’ benching in the second half of Tampa Bay’s win over Arizona last month, Dean has flourished, recording five pass breakups and a clutch, fourth-quarter interception in that game, as well as five pass breakups two weeks later in a win at Atlanta. The secondary as a whole has played well, holding quarterback Matt Ryan to just 271 yards and no touchdowns in a game that Atlanta trailed from the second quarter once Tampa Bay took a 13-10 lead.

And while Devin White stole the show in Jacksonville, the Bucs secondary helped hold the Jaguars to just 193 passing yards and contributed five pass breakups and a key interception from Murphy-Bunting in the end zone in the second half.

Both Licht and Arians are big believers in accountability, and that’s one of the many reasons why they work so well together.

As a coach this year, Arians cut Bobo Wilson after his costly muffed punt resulted in a key turnover in London in an 11-point loss to Carolina. He also benched Hargreaves in the second half of the Cardinals game, and recently benched starting running back Ronald Jones II after he missed a blitz pick-up that resulted in Jameis Winston’s sack-fumble in the first half at Jacksonville last week.

Arians said that Jones took his benching in stride last week and expects him to rebound on Sunday when the Indianapolis Colts come to town.

“It’s been great,” Arians said. “I just reaffirmed to him that he’s my guy and [said], ‘Hey, we can’t have that. We’re in the playoffs now. If we have that you are standing next to me.’”

Arians said his decision to bench players or cut players isn’t necessarily a motivational tactic because all of those decisions are based in the truth.

Bucs head coach Bruce Arians and CB Sean Murphy-Bunting – Photo by: Getty Images

“It’s just called honesty,” Arians said. “I don’t sugarcoat it. So if you can’t handle the truth it’s a problem sometimes, and some young kids can’t. So you have to call them in and talk to them individually and pat them on the back.”

Or cut them, like Licht and Arians did with Hargreaves. And that move has clearly made a difference with Dean’s emergence and improved play from the secondary as Tampa Bay has won three of its last four games.