Bucs give Sears support, opportunity to resume career

I'm tempted to say the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just made their first big player acquisition for next season, but since we still don't know whether guard Arron Sears will ever really contribute again we'd probably better hold off on that.

The prodigal lineman has returned to One Buc Place this week - overweight, out of shape and so far behind in such basics as learning the playbook that general manager Mark Dominik said it is "wishful thinking" to think Sears has a chance to help the Bucs this season.

I guess we all knew that.

What we don't know, and probably won't know for at least a couple of more weeks, is what has kept Sears away from the team for all of this season. The Bucs have never said and Sears, well, who really knows where he has been all this time - physically or mentally? Dominik said Sears, who lives in Alabama, kept in touch during his absence, but that's about as much as Dominik will say for now on that subject.

Obviously, medical privacy laws are in play. Sears is the only one who can clear up the mystery about what was wrong, where he was and why things are better now. That assumes they really are better.

Teammates have said previously that Sears pulled back from them, stopped talking and even began to write down answers when asked a question.

Was it depression or something similar? And at some point in all of this, did Sears somehow realize that he wants football, that he needs football and that football was the lifeline he grabbed hold of to pull out of whatever this is?

Maybe, but at this point it's best to just let the matter play out completely.

What we do know is that a highly talented guy who started 31 games in two seasons, who seemed destined to become one of the best linemen in franchise history, had a personal issue that threatened to ruin his career. For all we know, it was ruined - there's no way to tell whether he'll regain enough to contribute again to the Bucs.

Dominik said Sears has gained a lot of weight and let his body slip to the point where he'll spend the next two weeks doing nothing but conditioning. He won't attend team meetings, won't practice and won't be seen publicly. The Bucs have basically put a fence around him, although they intend to have him address the media at some point.

There will only be six weeks left in the season after Sunday's game against the Saints, so any idea that Sears would ride to the rescue on the offensive line this season should be forgotten. It would a major victory just to get into a game or two by year's end. Although he cleared the biggest hurdle by just coming back to Tampa and rejoining the team, getting a few snaps would mean there's one less question for him heading into the off-season. Even that might be, as Dominik suggests, wishful thinking.

The best-case scenario - from a football standpoint - would be for Sears to have recovered the drive and love for the game to spend between now and next year's minicamps and such getting back into top shape, learning the offense and all the other things that would allow him to become a productive player again.

If he can do that, it would almost be like picking up another premium free agent or draft pick.

I guess we'll find that out soon, too.

For now, it's all speculation.

We do know that he is back in town, trying to salvage a promising career.

We know his teammates have welcomed him. We know the Bucs are giving him support and an opportunity.

We know that coming back to the team is just the next step on a long road to recovery.

And we know one other thing.

We know that what happens from here on out is up to Arron Sears.