Robert Ayers won’t let Buccaneers rookies be “soft”

As one of the leaders on the Buccaneers, Robert Ayers wants to make sure that none of the incoming rookies are “soft”.

Think back to the Bucs’ roster three years ago. Now five. Seven. How many stand-out players have there been that the Buccaneers drafted? How many really stand out and come to mind? Mike Evans, sure. How many others? Now, how many high draft picks did the Bucs use and wound up with “soft” players? Mark Barron? Josh Freeman? Michael Clayton?

Robert Ayers isn’t going to allow that to happen anymore.

See, despite what some may want you to think or do when it comes to this team, we live in a new era of Buccaneers football and fandom. We have entered an era where mediocrity isn’t accepted. No one cares if you were a fourth round pick – you can’t get your head on straight you won’t even make through training camp. No one cares if you were signed to a free agent contract – some third day pick or undrafted rookie can come in and earn that job, stealing it away from you. Jason Licht especially doesn’t care if you just got a massive free agent deal – you don’t perform, you get kicked to the curb.

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We live in an era of Bucs football when a media member asks the coach what kind of team he wants and he looks at them and says, “a bad ass football team. How bout that?”

Ayers is going to make it his job to get these rookies’ minds right and ensure that they understand the task at hand and take care of business;

"“I believe in challenging each other. I believe in competing. I believe in weeding out the weak. If we’ve got somebody that’s soft, I want to weed him out. When he comes in, I’m going to try to challenge him. Whether it’s an offensive lineman or a tight end or whoever, I’m going to try to challenge him to see early who’s going to fold and who’s not. That’s how I look at things. It’s going to be fun. I’m pretty sure he’s going to bring it back, and that’s what I expect. I expect for him to bring it back, and it’s going to make us all better. That’s my approach to it. I’m not going to try to hurt him or do anything dirty or go out of my character to challenge him, but I just believe that’s what this game is about. It’s about challenging each other, competing and basically trying to weed out the weak. That’s how I look at it.”"

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That’s a leader. That’s someone with the mindset the Bucs need to get them to where we all expect them to be this season.

That’s the new era.