The Buccaneers got together to start offseason workouts on Monday without a longtime member of the franchise.
Ronde Barber has yet to decide whether or not he wants to return for a 17th season with the Buccaneers. Tampa has told him that he has a spot on the team if he wants to continue his consecutive games played streak past 240 games, which is good for seventh place all-time while playing one more full season would leave him in fourth place on that list.
Coach Greg Schiano said that the team has no deadline to hear from Barber at present, although he opened up the possibility that they’d need to impose one down the road. For now, though, they’re just staying in contact with one of the faces of the franchise.
“He’s not under contract, so, no, he was not here,” Schiano said, via Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times. “We’ve been in communication, but there’s no developments, and that’s fine. That’s the way we kind of left it. We just continue to keep in communication. There’s certainly no silence or anything. I just think it’s the process of figuring it out.”
If Barber does return, he’s likely to see far less playing time than he’s seen throughout his career. Dashon Goldson has joined Mark Barron at safety and the Bucs remain the likeliest landing spot for Jets CB Darrelle Revis in a trade, which would leave Barber to play exclusively in sub packages for the first time in a very long time in Tampa.