Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. was blowing everybody's minds during the preseason, showing up early and leaving late, putting up monster highlights at practice, and making the New York Jets offensive linemen look like sacks of potatoes during the joint sessions.
But with the real lights on in the NFL regular season, Bain Jr. has been playing like a high schooler. The Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns both shut Bain down, and it is like finding a coin under a vending machine to pick out the bits of positives about Bain Jr.'s performances off the edge.
After being anointed as the Second Coming before his first NFL regular season ever started, some national analysts and fans have already turned on the No. 15 overall pick from The U, calling him a bust and deriding his short arms once more.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles is failing Rueben Bain Jr.
But seasoned Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans not only can pick out some of the positives in what Bain Jr. is doing in his approach and technically from Week 1 to Week 2 against the Browns, but they also know that Bain Jr.'s lack of effectiveness off the edge is not all on him.
In addition to injuries, Bain is dealing with the perfect storm of two more issues that are effectively sabotaging him. The first and most obvious is the fact that Todd Bowles is his head coach. Now, if things keep up like this, that probably won't be the case for long, but the point is that Bowles has consistently failed to get the most out of his best players on defense. Bain Jr. is just doing what Antoine Winfield Jr. and Vita Vea are this season, which is to say, a whole lot of nothing in this failing scheme.
Plus, Bowles has long struggled to develop young players, particularly edge rushers. Ya Ya Diaby is the first example of a big talent going to waste because of Bowles, and now Bain Jr. is another player Bowles isn't maximizing.
But maybe more importantly than Bowles, Rueben Bain Jr. is being sabotaged by his own teammates. Vita Vea playing awful football and going anonymous is affecting the pass rushers, and Vea has been much worse than Bain, all told. The other defensive linemen haven't been much better, and it's really impossible for an outside linebacker, especially a rookie, to get anything going when the defensive line is getting totally bullied by the opposition every down.
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