Playing defensive back in the NFL is one of the toughest positions to master in today’s game. Make no mistake about it, this isn’t the type of game that your grandparents, or even your parents watched. This is a game that demands more from its players; in intelligence, in execution and in athleticism.

A decade ago, corners and safeties could be physical. They could grab a receiver within reason, move him off his route, and stick to him like glue to fight for the ball. For better or worse, the rules have been altered to both make the game safer, and give the offense and advantage to score more points. Nowadays, the slightest bit of contact or a simple misplacement of your hand could draw a penalty, and you can barely touch a receiver after five-yards off the ball.

Knowing that, fair or not, defenses and defensive backs in particular are going to get beat on plays. It’s just the nature of the game when an offense averages 34 passing plays per game and the rules are mended to their side. This makes it crucial for every defensive back who wants to make it in this league to come in with a sense of confidence.

As they come into the league, young players are already trying to balance moving to a new city, getting a new life set up, impressing new coaches and new teammates, and figuring out a new playbook. Expectedly, these things can sometimes become overwhelming, and that has a tendency to show up on the field.

Legendary Bucs CB Ronde Barber – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

The ones who make it will tell you that, through it all, you have to stay confident. Where exactly does the confidence in a player come from? Is it something just instinctual that
shows more in some than others, or can it be built upon further and grow.

Soon-to-be Bucs Ring Of Honor member Ronde Barber was a player that had a quiet confidence to him, en route to becoming the best defensive back in team history. He gave his take on how a player gains confidence, the importance of it, and explained how he’s encouraged the Bucs young group of defensive backs around him.

“I think confidence is… it’s learned,” Barber said. You get it with time on task, familiarity. Last year when I sat down with Vernon [Hargreaves], we talked about scheme and keeping yourself healthy and all this other stuff, but in reality, confidence is knowing yourself. If you know how you’re going to react to stimuli in a game, if you’ve studied yourself, you’re halfway to being great, and then it’s just taking advantage of your opportunity.

“I’ve encouraged all these young guys that I’ve talked to to know yourself. You can study the game all you want, watch the film all you want, but know how you’re going to react, study how you’re going to react. That’s how you perfect your craft, I said that in there, that’s what I would do, I’d just study myself, I knew exactly how I was going to react to whatever came up in practice, a game, or whatever, it worked for me.”

Barber didn’t just grasp this confidence overnight. Even a decade into his career, he credits former Bucs defensive backs coach Jimmy Lake for being the perfect coach to help a player’s confidence. Lake was the Bucs assistant DBs coach from 2006 to 2007, and later come back as the head DBs coach in 2011. Today, he’s the defensive coordinator for the University of Washington.

“You talk about confidence, that’s what he instills in his players,” Barber said. “Confidence, understanding, what good coaches do, give them the skill, give them the tools to be your best. He does that as good as anybody I’ve been around, he really does. He has a way similar but different than Raheem [Morris] relating to young guys, and that’s a skill. He’s 42 years old or whatever and can speak the language of a 21year-old or really an 18 year-old, that’s hard.”

Relating to the young players is a task that defensive coordinator Todd Bowles and company are dealing with currently, as the Bucs secondary has an abundance of defensive backs that are in their first or second year. Even the elder statesman of the corners, Vernon Hargreaves, is just 24 years of age.

Bucs CBs coach Kevin Ross and DB M.J. Stewart – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Another defensive back that falls into this category is second-year player M.J. Stewart. After a rocky rookie season that saw him both get benched and miss time due to injury, he’s turned the page and has begun to study himself, as Barber alluded to. Stewart sees how much having a year under his belt can make a difference.

“Just knowing that I can’t make those rookie mistakes anymore,” Stewart said. “ I’m not a veteran, but that’s how I have got to treat myself because it’s my second year. I’ve had a year of experience so they hold me a lot more accountable than they were holding me.”

The cornerback out of North Carolina also mentioned that understanding the defense and what the offense is trying to do is something that he’s improved on. But the biggest vote of confidence that Stewart could hear were the words that came from Barber over what current player reminds him of himself.

“M.J. Stewart’s impressed me more as much as anybody,” Barber said. “His first couple of practices this year I was like ‘Oh god, he’s going to succumb to the pressure of these young guys,’ but since then, you can easily say he’s been the second best corner out there. He’s versatile and he can do a lot of things and he’s tough as hell. I tend to judge corners through the prism of Ronde Barber, with what they have compared to me, and he most closely resembles it.”

Stewart understandingly took great exuberance after receiving a compliment like that from a Bucs great.

“That’s an honor coming from a guy who’s in the Bucs Ring Of Honor and potentially a future Hall of Famer, I think he should be [in the Hall of Fame]. Hearing those words from him is an inspiration and motivation to me just to….it’s a tribute to what I’ve been doing on the field with my work, and I just got to keep going and keep going just to prove his words right.”

Cornerback adjustments and lessons in confidence are not exclusive to the Buccaneers. Earlier this summer, the Bucs welcomed the Miami Dolphins into town for two joint practices. That meant Miami cornerback Xavien Howard, one of the best corners in the game, was at the Bucs facility to show some of the young guys how it’s done.

But even players like Howard have had their ups and downs. Howard expressed the importance of moving onto the next play and how crucial that is for a young player coming up in this league.

Bucs SS Mike Edwards – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

“This league, everybody is good, people get beat,” Howard said. “It just depends on how you get back to it, how you react to it after you getting beat.”

Look around the league and you’ll be able to see corners who play with confidence and how it makes them better. Obviously there’s the Jalen Ramseys and Richard Shermans of the world, who might be more boisterous than others, but you can still play with a confidence that lets you be yourself.

For every all-time great like Deion Sanders, a player who was known for his flash while locking down the best receivers on the other team, you had a Darrelle Revis, a player who might not say but ten words to you all game, but had the same shutdown impact as a guy like Sanders nonetheless.

Howard said that, when you find whatever it is that makes you confident, it’s a liberating feeling – and truly what takes your game to the next level.

“When you get that confidence and just playing free out there, that’s when it just starts coming,” Howard said. “That’s what I had early in my career, I wasn’t having the confidence and stuff like that, and as soon as I found that confidence I took off after that. It’s just about having that confidence, just knowing, just playing well, it’s about knowing what the defense wants you to do and just be confident and what you doing, and at practice, knowing what you can do and can’t do.”

While Howard has been through it and Stewart can say so as well, that’s not the same for rookie safety Mike Edwards. The Bucs selected him in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft, in part because of his versatility and physical nature. But it was also because he was a team leader at Kentucky. In order to lead, you must first know yourself.

“I feel real confident,” Edwards said. “I’m just trying to work on communicating out there and being vocal and lining myself up with other people like that and stuff. I feel comfortable out there, especially after going through OTAs and mini-camp and now training camp, so, I feel comfortable now.

“Going to Kentucky, I wasn’t a vocal leader, but going into my years I became one,” Edwards said. “So coming here, your by a lot of guys and you try to take that next step being a vocal leader here, I just got to learn my stuff to be a vocal leader and tell what I got to do, what other people got to do, I got the calls down now. I’m just trying to take the next step now.”

Whether it’s an all time great like Barber, a current player at the top of his position such as Howard, or newcomers like Stewart and Edwards, the message seems to be similar: Know the kind of player you are, study yourself, and never lose confidence in what your capable of.

Your game will take care of the rest.