Mark Barron doesn’t report with other Bucs rookies

Getty Images

Like many other teams, the Buccaneers are having their rookies report to training camp before their veterans to help them adjust to life as professionals a little more easily.

The Buccaneers don’t officially open camp until July 26th, but all but one of their rookies are at team headquarters Wednesday to start working with coaches. Safety Mark Barron, the seventh overall pick in the draft, hasn’t signed a contract yet and, according to Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times, did not join his teammates.

It shouldn’t be too long before he gets there, though. Robert Griffin III didn’t join the other Redskins rookies earlier this week when the Redskins had them report for duty, but he’s there now that he has a shiny new contract. Since most teams in the top 10 were waiting for someone to budge on offset language and start getting top picks signed, it’s a good bet that Barron’s contract shouldn’t take too much longer to wrap up. That leaves him plenty of time to get comfortable with the defense while staking his claim to a starting job.

We’ll close by reflecting on how nice it is that the NFL is now a world where a rookie not reporting to pre-camp work is worth mentioning because there’s a very minute chance that he won’t have signed his contract before the start of training camp.