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Jenna Laine, ESPN Staff Writer
TAMPA, Fla. — On fourth-and-1, Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie running back Sean Tucker made one cut to his right on the outside, broke one tackle and stiff-armed another defender as he broke two more for a 26-yard gain. It was the longest run of the Bucs’ preseason.
It also was a glimmer of hope for a team that rendered the league’s worst rushing attack last year, but more importantly for the 5-foot-10, 210 pound former Syracuse standout, it’s a chance to make up for lost time.
Football was taken from him – as was a 10-yard touchdown in the first preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers because of Nick Leverett’s holding penalty – and this is his fighting chance to get it back after a previously undiagnosed heart condition meant no NFL team would touch him during the draft.
Tucker did not elaborate on the specifics of his condition, only that it’s something that he’s always had – even when he amassed 3,182 rushing yards (third-most all-time for the Orange) and shattered the school’s single-season rushing record with 1,496 rushing yards in 2021 – but didn’t find out about it until the NFL combine in the spring.
“It was hard at first, just hearing everything,” Tucker said. “When I got the news … it came as a surprise. Hearing that, like the day before like my position group has the combine drills – it was definitely hard.”
He wasn’t able to participate in any of the combine drills. And ultimately, he went undrafted despite ESPN senior draft analyst Mel Kiper calling Tucker his favorite back in the draft class.
“It was kind of like … a little moment for me, you know?” Tucker said of the letdown. “Just like, the dream aspect of it, always working for it and then, pushing hard through college, giving it all just so I can have that day, you know?”
The Bucs would go on to sign Tucker as an undrafted free agent right after the draft, despite his complications, and running backs coach Skip Peete admitted that “he would’ve been drafted” if things didn’t happen the way they did in the months leading up to the draft.
Come draft time, Tucker was in and out of doctor’s offices with wires hooked up to his chest and confined to an ever-clanging MRI tube as he worked to overcome his issues.
He wasn’t allowed to run while undergoing additional testing. He did, however, use a treadmill at home for incline walking, along with doing pushups and sit-ups. He couldn’t sit still and just do nothing.
“It took us putting the reins on him. He wanted to go 100 miles an hour,” general manager Jason Licht said. “He had been training 100 percent, 100 miles an hour, and it wasn’t helping the situation. So [we] just shut him down for the entire spring, and now it’s worked out.”
He sat out for May’s rookie minicamp, OTAs and June’s mandatory minicamp but took part in every meeting and every install. The Bucs team doctor then cleared him after a month and they slowly increased his activity. He has been full bore ever since the first training camp practice July 26, with no setbacks.
New offensive coordinator Dave Canales immediately saw the extra gear and the suddenness, calling him a “fantastic runner” and said “He is probably the fastest guy in the room.”
How fast? Tucker said two weeks before the combine, he was running a 4.3 40-yard dash time in training.
Only two running backs at the combine this year did that – De’Von Achane out of Texas A&M ran a 4.32, and Jahmyr Gibbs out of Alabama ran a 4.36. Gibbs went on to be selected 12th overall by the Detroit Lions, and Achane was selected in the third round – 84th overall – by the Miami Dolphins.
“He reminds me of Thomas Rawls, who played great for us [with the Seattle Seahawks] for a while,” Canales said of his time with his former team. “But he has that physical run style that we loved that we’re going to love here – he’s going to bring a little punch and attitude to what we do.”
Tucker has gone from watching on the sidelines to turning in some of the most impressive runs of the Bucs’ running back group. Rachaad White is already slated to be starter and has yet to play this preseason while veteran Chase Edmonds, slated to be their third-down back, has been nursing an undisclosed injury, so it’s been all Tucker and Ke’Shawn Vaughn. Tucker has made the most of things and could leaps into the No. 2 role.
“He’s lively,” Canales said. “It just feels like he’s making more than what’s there on check-downs, on runs. I’m excited about what he’s gonna bring to us.”
Rookie wideout Trey Palmer, who has turned in his own expressive preseason with two touchdown grabs, even dubbed him, “Baby Nick Chubb.” Chubb has Tucker by an inch and 17 pounds but has excelled in the Cleveland Browns’ version of the wide zone scheme that Canales brought over from the Seahawks that’s similar to what Tucker ran at Syracuse. He can make one cut, turn the corner and he’s gone, and he has the necessary patience for cutback lanes to develop and can adjust on the fly.
The only difference is, Chubb ran a 4.52 in the 40, and Rawls ran a 4.46.
“The thing that’s impressed me probably more than anything has been his ability to run routes out of backfield and his hands,” Peete said. “He does his job that way, and I didn’t know he really had that in him because they really didn’t utilize the back like that at Syracuse. So that’s been a pleasure to see that happen.”
Tucker isn’t dwelling on what might have been, focusing only on the here and now, with his final opportunity to showcase his abilities Saturday night in the Bucs’ preseason finale against the Baltimore Ravens. By all accounts, he most certainly should make the team. But another strong performance could propel him higher up the pecking order.
“You wouldn’t even [have known he’d missed practice time],” Peete said. “I mean even during the spring when he couldn’t even do anything … you could just tell that he was actually dialed in. ‘I have to make sure I understand everything that we’re supposed to do, but I don’t have an opportunity to actually practice it.’ And I think he stayed really focused during that time.
“Then when we came back for training camp, obviously he had an opportunity to get back on the field, right now he’s — I think we’re all pretty clear with what he’s doing. So I’m excited to see what he does Saturday against Baltimore.”
Source: www.espn.com