Changing the defense?

Joe remembers the some commenters to Joe’s practice notes early in training camp starting to grumble.

“Where is Josiah Trotter?”

The second-round pick of the Bucs wasn’t much of a factor at inside linebacker when the Bucs were still in underwear football mode.

KitKat-eating Bucs coach Todd Bowles told inquiring members of the local pen and mic club to give Trotter a few days. He’ll showing up when the pads came on, Bowles predicted.

Boy, Bowles on the mark.

It was the second (fully) padded practice, specifically the night practice in the Glazer Shed. There, you could see a young man taking over the mentality of the Bucs defense. Trotter was playing physical ball not seen by a linebacker since Lavonte David’s early years or flashes from a young Devin White. He basically sparked a fight with his physical play. And when the two sides were separated and Trotter went back to the defensive side of the line, he let the offense know he was still coming and they best buckle their chin straps.

That moment could become the turning point for the Bucs crafting the defense they sought to build in the offseason.

Trotter said he was raised by his Pro Bowl dad to play football one way: violent. He has no plans to change and disgrace his family name.

“It’s just how I was raised, just to be myself when I’m out there, rookie or not,” Trotter said about being physical. “When you’re on the football field, nobody cares if you’re a rookie.

“It’s, ‘Are you making plays or are you not?’ At the end of the day, I just know who I am out there. I’m just trying to be myself; to be the guy [the Bucs] brought me in here to be.

“Just go out there, just compete at the highest level. I respect all those guys over there, the guys that I got at my side.”

Trotter is a good dude off the field. There, he is Josiah. But put him between the white lines and Trotter morphs into a different sort of beast, as Joe noted last week.

“When I come out here, I try to separate the two as a player and person,” Trotter said. “I just know when I put these pads on, Josiah is out the window, I just become ‘Trot’ now at that point.

“I’m just trying to bring that mindset of everything that my dad instilled in me from a young age. I’m just here trying to set the tone, just be me, be a playmaker at the end of the day, do my job, try to compete and get better at the end of the day.”

That reminds Antoine Winfield. He learned football in the lap of his dad, the former Vikings corner. That upbringing did wonders for him, and the Bucs.

Joe senses the same thing playing out with Trotter. In other words, beware of the “Trot.”