Romeo Crennel: Respect the Buccaneers’ speed, despite their newfound lack of weapons
The Bucs are an injured team. Their offense will not contain their top-two threats on Sunday in Pro Bowl wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Both are shelved due to serious hamstring injuries.
However, the Texans’ defense can’t nap against the Bruce Arians offense. Tampa Bay, even without their top-two receiver, can still score points, in large part due to the speed on offense, specifically wide receiver Breshad Perriman, who ran sub 4.3 second 40-yard-dashes before the 2015 NFL Draft.
“Perriman, he shows up on the tape,” defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel said on Wednesday. “As your looking at the tape, he’s got good size, got good downfield speed and they throw him the ball as well. So, they had a good stable of receivers and I think probably his role will become more prominent without those guys around and so he’ll be the go-to guy and then we’re going to have to try to get something done about him.”
As the go-to guy for the Bucs in a win over the Detroit Lions last week, Perriman tallied three touchdown receptions.
Perriman isn’t the only speedster on the Bucs’ roster. Receivers Justin Watson and Cyril Grayson each ran 4.4 40-yard-dashes or below before they respectively entered the NFL.