Buccaneers tackle Donald Penn’s weight became a matter of interest on Memorial Day with a report alleging he’s frustrated the team by failing to meet “most of the weight clauses” in his contract.
Penn strongly refuted the report via Twitter and did so again on Wednesday after the team’s practice. He said he regretted reacting on Twitter to what he termed a “stupid little report” and that he’s gotten praise from coach Greg Schiano and General Manager Mark Dominik about keeping his weight in line so he doesn’t know where the report originated because he doesn’t think it started with the team.
“You know, me and Schiano, we had a lot of talks last year about where he wanted my weight. Because we had a disagreement on where he wanted and where I thought I should be. And you know at the end of the day, that’s a battle that I’m not going to win,” Penn said, via JoeBucsFan.com “And I bought in and I’ve done everything he’s asked me to do. I’ve done everything Mark asked me to do since [the start of] last year. And for that to come out, after I’ve been doing everything that I’ve done, it really like kind of stabbed me in the stomach.”
Dominik and Schiano both said that there are no problems with Penn’s weight. Dominik said Penn is “right on par” with what the team hoped and that “anything else has kind of been exaggerated.” Schiano admitted the team keeps an eye on Penn’s weight, but that Penn has done “everything he’s asked” to do by the team. That should pretty much settle things on the Penn weight front for the time being.