Tampa Bay's Ruud playing the middle exactly right

Barrett Ruud is on a pace to lead the Buccaneers and finish among the league's leaders in tackles yet again this season, but for some Bucs followers that's just not good enough.

Amid claims he simply plays too soft, a seemingly growing legion of critics has been clamoring for Ruud to play more aggressively and get more sacks. But the critics are asking for something the Bucs don't even ask of their middle linebacker.

Since Monte Kiffin brought his version of the Cover 2 defense to Tampa in 1996, the role of the Bucs middle linebacker has always been to station himself about 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage, play mostly laterally against the run and fall back into coverage on passing plays.

As Bucs coach Raheem Morris pointed out recently, it has seldom, if ever, been the job of the Bucs middle linebacker to rush the passer or disrupt plays in the backfield and so the Bucs middle backer has seldom, if ever, played an attacking style and racked up big sack totals.

"A lot of Barrett's tackles come on our side of the line of scrimmage because of how we play him,'' Morris said. "A lot of times he takes two steps and then falls back and we let (weakside linebacker) Geno (Hayes) or (strongside linebacker) Quincy (Black) be the run-through guys.

"What that means is that Barrett is kind of the catch-all failsafe guy. We'll have some blitzes in there and some run fronts where he's going to hit the fullback in the backfield and things of that nature, but for the most part, he's usually the failsafe guy that protects the gaps when they come open.

"That's just what his role has become. Within our defense, the (under tackle) and the (weakside) backer are the disruptors in the backfield. They're the guys who are supposed to account for the tackles for loss and things of that nature. Barrett is always the catch-all, failsafe guy that makes a tackle when somebody else misses."

The role is the same one Hardy Nickerson, Jamie Duncan and Shelton Quarles filled during their tenures as Bucs middle linebackers, and a look back at their careers here will show they were never big tackle-for-loss or sack producers either.

Nickerson, for example, recorded 5.5 sacks during the four years he played middle backer for the Bucs, with three of those coming in his first year as Kiffin's middle backer, 1996.

Duncan recorded two sacks as the Bucs middle backer (both in 2001) and Quarles recorded eight as a Bucs middle linebacker, including one during his Pro Bowl year of 2002. So why the criticism of Ruud?

It's difficult to tell, really. It seems some Bucs followers want him to be more of a thumper like Ray Lewis of the Ravens or David Harris of the Jets, but Ruud doesn't play in the same defense as they do and he doesn't have the same job description that they have.

Lewis and Harris play in 3-4 schemes, while the Bucs run a 4-3, and in those schemes Lewis and Harris are asked to attack the line of scrimmage whereas Ruud, who has 70 tackles and one sack, is not. Like the Bears' Brian Urlacher (62 tackles, 1.5 sacks), his job is to line up the defense and make plays on the second level.

And most scouts and contemporaries seem to believe he does a pretty good job of it. An ESPN ranking of middle linebackers produced by Scouts Inc. gave Ruud a grade of 79, which is three points less than the grade it gave Urlacher, two points less than the grade it gave Lewis and the same as the grade it gave Lofa Tatupu.

"As for me, I'm a big fan of his," Carolina Panthers middle linebacker Jon Beason said of Ruud. "Stat-wise the last few years, he's been right up there with the best of them, especially the last two years.

"When I think of what a middle linebacker is supposed to be, he's one of the first that comes to mind. He's a very instinctive, very smart player and he's very consistent. He makes the big plays, and he's always - always - in position. I love watching him play."

Too bad more of his hometown fans don't.