Bucs' contract stance may create 'angry workers'

Bucs coach Raheem Morris likes it best when his players are "angry workers." His general manager may have done his part Sunday to make sure Morris has a few more than expected this season.

One day after signing former restricted free agent left tackle Donald Penn to a six-year, $48 million contract, GM Mark Dominik said he plans to wait several weeks, if not months, before engaging in serious contract talks with the Bucs' remaining restricted free agents.

"Coach Morris and I are both very fond of a lot of our players, but right now I want to see us play some football before we do anything else," Dominik said.

The team's stance means middle linebacker Barrett Ruud, running back Cadillac Williams, right tackle Jeremy Trueblood and receiver Maurice Stovall likely will have to prove themselves worthy of long-term contract extensions during the regular season.

Dominik said Morris explained the team's position to each of the Bucs' remaining RFAs on Saturday, and while some seem to have taken that news in stride, at least one might have been further angered by the approach.

Ruud, who last year staged a boycott similar but not as lengthy as the one Penn staged this year, has politely refused to speak to the media since word of Penn's deal came down. In a move largely out of character for him, he ran past reporters seeking comment Sunday, saying, "I got nothing for you guys."

Morris said Saturday that Ruud's mind-set on the matter was positive, but he refused to elaborate on his conversation with his defensive captain when pressed for further details Sunday.

"We're not going to manufacture drama," Morris said. "With Barrett, he signed his tender and we decided to move on, me and him both. We're at the point where we're going to go race for 10 (wins) and let the chips fall where they may. He understands the process. He's a grown man and he's handling it."

So is Trueblood. The Bucs' starting right tackle said he won't let the fact that Penn got the deal Penn was looking for affect him, despite the fact he is still hoping to be rewarded for his own body of work.

"Right now, I don't know what (Bucs management is) thinking and I really don't care," Trueblood said. "I just want to get ready for the season. You'd like to say (Penn's signing is good for the rest of us), but I don't (know) that. His relationship with the Bucs has nothing to do with mine."

Unlike Penn, the Bucs' other RFAs all signed the one-year tender the Bucs offered them and are under contract for the 2010 season. Their futures are uncertain, however, and Morris said the fact that the Bucs' decision may make them angry workers could be good for the team.

"I hope so," Morris said when asked if the Bucs' stance on contracts will make the other RFAs angry workers. "I want all of them to be angry workers. That's when you get the best out of yourself.

"That's been our mentality in the defensive backs (meeting) room for a long time now. I mean, Ronde Barber is the classic example of an angry worker. He might have invented the term, because he's always looked at everybody as being against him.

"He was a third-round pick who (thought he) should have been a first-round pick. When he didn't play he (thought he) should have been starting. When he started everybody was out to get him.

"We drafted Brian Kelly to replace him. That's what he tells himself anyway, and whether it's true or not, it's how he works, and I like that. I like the angry worker mentality. It transitions nice into a heck of a game-day player."