Bucs CB Jacob Parrish.

The last couple of games, Bucs slot corner Jacob Parrish hasn’t played as sharp as he did earlier in the season.

It’s not because Parrish all of a sudden turned rotten. No, what happened with Parrish is he has run into the rookie wall.

College players play, at most, 15 games. That’s how many Michigan and Washington played two years ago when they advanced to the national championship.

Last year when Parrish played for Kansas State, the Wildcats played 13 games, but Parrish only played in 12. He opted out of the Rate Bowl so his season ended at the end of November 2024.

However, that didn’t mean Parrish got much of a break. He immediately began working out to play in the Senior Bowl and once that was over, it was non-stop training for the combine.

Then it was traveling all over the country for meetings with NFL teams and before you knew it, he was in rookie minicamp with the Bucs. Then it was OTAs and underwear football.

Basically, Parrish’s body didn’t get a break. Roughly five weeks after mandatory minicamp, it was time for training camp and away we go.

While most rookies never want to admit the rookie wall hits them, Parrish did sort of tell Joe it’s been a challenge.

(Once, a rookie who became a Pro Bowl player for the Bucs absolutely denied to Joe in no uncertain terms he had hit the rookie wall, even though his play screamed that. Fast-forward a year and the same player confessed to Joe out of the blue, “That rookie wall kicked my ass.”)

Parrish wouldn’t let the rookie wall be an excuse.

“I can say for myself, I gotta go out there and play better,” Parrish told Joe. “I’m gonna own it. I know these next couple weeks, I’m gonna give them all and play. But, yeah, I think [the rookie wall] is there.”

Parrish admitted he really hasn’t had a break from football since last December. The transition from college player to the NFL is a whirlwind and taxing.

If Parrish can dig deep and find some juice to get him through the next few weeks, it would sure be a big help for the struggling Bucs defense.