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Phillips Out Piscitelli In
By Jonathan C. Mitchell on October 28, 2008

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have appeared to have lost starting strong safety Jermaine Phillips for the season to a broken arm he suffered in the loss to the Cowboys. This very well could mean that his career as a Buc is over since he is a free agent at the end of the year. With all due respect to the fantastic player Phillips is, the Bucs will get an upgrade and a glimpse into the future at strong safety with Sabby Piscitelli taking over the position.

Jermaine Phillips has been a stong part of this Bucs defense the past couple of seasons. He has had a season over 100 tackles, he is a hard hitter, and he’s great at stopping the run. The main problem with him is that he has always been average at best in coverage and he isn’t the best open field tackler either. Those are both areas that Piscitelli strives in.

Most people have never heard of Sabby Piscitelli before so here is a run down of him. He was drafted in 2007 with the last pick in the 2nd round (32nd pick) out of Oregon State. Standing at 6′3″ and 224 pounds he is very strong and an equally hard hitter compared to Phillips. Piscettil has the speed to run with most recievers and to cover any open ground. He has been clocked below 4.5 in the 40 yeard dash but his game speed seems to be faster. Rookiepedia.com used these words in their scouting report: Great size … Explosive … Ballhawking playmaker … Great leader … Instinctive. I can’t argue with any of that. He fits nicely in the Cover 2 and will remind a lot of people of John Lynch with more speed.

The main knocks on Piscitelli are that he is inexperienced, injury-prone, and may take too many risks on the field. I’ll take the full package of Piscitelli any day as my starting strong safety in a Cover 2 scheme.

“Players go down and we have replacements come in to fill his shoes”, said free safety Tanard Jackson. “Me and Sabby, we play together all the time. I think he knows enough, he’s played behind Flip (Phillips) enough to know what you have to do. We all rotate and get a certain amount of plays.”

When I read the scouting report on Piscitelli the day of the 2008 draft I felt whoever drafted him was getting a borderline star if given the opportunity. Then I saw him in the preseason of his rookie season when he ran 30+ yards to track down Maurice Jones-Drew and lay a big hit on him at the 3-yard line, knocking him on his butt out of bounds. From that point on I said the Bucs had to make room for him.

The loss of Phillips does hurt but when his replacement is a potential star (although unheard of by many) it may be a blessing in disguise.

-Jonathan C. Mitchell

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