Derrick Brooks Remains Unemployed As Training Camp Looms Closer
July 2, 2009 – 8:00 am by Bunk
It’s fairly hard to believe that Derrick Brooks has still not landed himself a gig for the 2009 NFL season. After not being re-upped by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the 36-year old linebacker remains a free agent with training camps opening league wide in less than a month. He did fail to register a sack last year, the third straight year for him without taking down an opposing quarterback. And his tackle totals declined to just 58 last year – the lowest figure of his career. But he’s still a sound tackler, extremely knowledgeable and durable (hasn’t missed a game since 1995) and is reportedly one of the league’s best locker room guys. I can think of plenty of teams who would be well served paying Brooks for several years, even if just to have him around their young roster.
The 11-time Pro Bowler and 5-time All Pro joined ESPN Radio St. Louis (including former teammate and NFL player D’Marco Farr) on Wednesday to talk about his Hall of Fame worthy career, the former rivalry the Buccaneers and the Rams had earlier in the decade and what the future may hold for the longtime Bucs standout.
On if he’s bitter with how the organization allowed things to transpire considering Brooks had been with the organization since being drafted all the way back in 1995:
“No, it can’t D’Marco because that’s the business again of the NFL. Everybody knows that when you come in and expect anything different, then you’re going to get disappointed. But with me, the news itself, you know I dealt with it for fourteen years. I just wanted it to happen. It could have been handled a little bit better in my opinion and I would have been ok with that I think. But the news itself, no i had no problem with that.”
On what he can still offer a team at this point in his career:
“A lot. Like I said, four years ago we did an extension and I was committed to playing fifteen years. Back then, hopefully all of them would have been in Tampa but like I said, that’s a milestone that me personally, I committed years ago to make. And like I said, there’s enough interest out there from teams to keep the fire burning. So I’ll continue to stay in shape and we’ll see what happens.”
On if he feels that he not have found a job just yet perhaps because teams around the league – the Bucs included – are changing away from the Tampa 2 scheme in recent years:
“No it’s not because if you play defense, you play football. So from that standpoint it’s meaningless. We made that defense what it was honestly with those classic battles against the Rams. And what our primary zone defense did was Cover-2 because of the front that you had to rush the pressure. Right now, you’re not getting as many combination of rushers that can rush like we could in our heyday. You know, four to six coming out. You’re just not seeing that anymore within units. And you know, like anything else in this game, you got to change. The style of offense is more or less not running the wide open offenses that ‘The Greatest Show On Turf’ ran that forced you to play that style of defense. So it’s not necessarily that teams aren’t playing that defense; it’s offenses are changing too, so the defense has got to change with the offense that’s being run by various teams now.”
Listen here to Brooks on ESPN Radio St. Louis
Tags: Derrick Brooks, ESPN Radio St. Louis, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
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