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Tampa Bay: A Damien worth rooting for
Posted: Tuesday August 03, 1999 11:31 AM
This is the third in a series of postcards Sports Illustrated's Peter King will e-mail from his annual NFL training-camp tour. Monday, Aug. 2 TEAM: Tampa Bay Buccaneers SITE: University of Tampa, Tampa, Fla. A classic old palm-tree-lined campus just across the Hillsborough River from downtown Tampa. PLAYER I SAW WHO I REALLY LIKED: Free safety Damien Robinson , a quick 215-pound steam train who finally should cure the dropsies the Bucs' secondary has suffered in the Dungy Era. In drills, he has the speed of a corner, and being 6' 2", he seems to put the fear of God into crossing wideouts. He should be a good bookend to mega-hitting strong safety John Lynch . Plus, he had 14 picks at Iowa, with only two dropped interceptions. Tony Dungy loves that. CAMP ODDITY: The Bucs have a rookie wideout in camp named Yo Murphy . When Murphy lined up for a route in Monday morning's practice, someone in the stands yelled: "Yo, Murphy!" This, however is not the best name I've run into on my rounds. There was a backup safety in Detroit named Kylie Supernaw . THE FOOD: The UTampa food-service people bug me. They can't wait till I'm finished with Warren Sapp and Tony Dungy to take the lunch entrees away? I mean, they wouldn't do that to Molly O'Neill , would they? Anyway, I was forced to make a deli sandwich (sliced turkey, lettuce, tomato, mustard on cheapo white bread), slug it down with Hawaiian Punch, and chase it all with what tasted like boxed chocolate cake with whip-cream-from-a-can icing. Oooof. The food here, for me, in the immortal words of Mike Myers , was D-minus, baybee .
Dear NFL Junkie: And so I ran into the aforementioned Robinson, this bright prospect of a free safety, after practice this morning, and eventually our chat got around to my question. "I was sad about it," he said. "He's one of those guys, when you play him, that it feels like an honor to be on the same field. Last year, we played Detroit on Monday Night Football, and I'm in the game. The first time I had a chance to tackle him, I went to wrap him up and, man, he was gone. I missed. He's so quick. The second time, it was just me and him, one on one. He's gained about seven yards on the play already, and if I miss him, he's probably gone. And this time, instead of following the outside leg, I just looked at his inside leg and stayed with it. And I got him. Wow. Remarkable. I mean, he's the best guy in the league, and I'm pretty new in the league -- I watched him when I was a kid. It was a great thrill. So Barry gets up and taps me on the head. It was cool." "You must feel like jumping up and down at that point," I said. "Yeah," Robinson said. "But it's like, inside, I'm jumping up and down. And the picture of the tackle was in the newspaper the next day. I made sure I got a copy of that. I framed it." "That's great," I said. "A lot of the players I talk to don't have that appreciation. Here's maybe one of the top 10 or 20 players who ever lived, and he just walked away from the game, and you're excited to have had the chance to play him." "Yeah," he said, nodding. "I don't know about other guys, but I mean Barry's so great, and he's such a role model for every player. Everybody admires Barry. You know he always worked week in and week out to make himself a better player, and he was so humble." I file away Damien Robinson in the King memory bank thinking this: I hope he's a good player. He's the type of guy you people out there should root for. By the way, here's my Bucs crystal ball: This team could win between eight (if Trent Dilfer flunks out for good and Eric Zeier fails too) and 12 because the defense is so darned good.
Check back soon for more Postcards from Camp. To send a question to
Peter King's NFL Mailbag, click here.
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