TAMPA, Fla. — The 2024 NFL Draft is just ten days away, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offseason workout program officially begins.
The team is in Phase I of the program, which only includes meetings, conditioning work and rehab work after players go through the mandatory physicals.
Bucs’ running back Rachaad White is entering his third season with the team. He’s eager to get back to work, knowing that several of the team’s big off-season free agents, like quarterback Baker Mayfield and wide receiver Mike Evans, signed new contracts to stay in Tampa Bay.
“Getting our big-time players and leaders back, our young guys following their lead and trying to get to where they are is huge,” White said. "We finished off really strong. That was great for us to see how we were playing and how we came together. A lot of those guys are in the building, like Mike and Chris [Godwin], right now.”
White finished with over 1,500 all-purpose yards last season—that’s even after a slow start. He claims a phone call from his mother turned his season around.
“She asked me some deep questions, you know. She just asked me, ‘Do you love football still? Are you having fun? You’re not smiling, dancing, being who you are.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I still love it,'" White said. “I kind of gave, ‘It ain’t easy.’ She’s been with me, dominating the steps of the process that I’ve been in. She’s like, ‘I don’t want to hear none of the negative, it ain’t this, it ain’t that. It’s what you make out of it.' It was huge for me. I took off after that.”
White was still ten yards shy of his first 1,000-yard rushing season. Under new offensive coordinator Liam Coen, he hopes to reach that milestone.
“We had our first meeting with Coach Liam this morning,” White said. “Great guy, great human being. Just very smart. He’s talking about the different things we’re going to do: get guys in certain positions, certain spaces. He already knows a lot of coverages that we see.”
The Bucs’ first preseason game is still only four months away.
