Tweener can play.

Why does a prospect drop in the draft? Often it’s a simple, blown-out-of-proportion issue.

Teams find a flaw with a player that general managers cannot justify ignoring if the guy doesn’t pan out, and then the general manager has to explain to his boss, the owner of the team, why the general manager chose to throw away tens of millions of dollars of the owner’s cash while willfully ignoring the red flag.

As Joe likes to say, it’s awfully easy for us to watch the draft on TV and kill a suit for not taking a chance on a guy with a red flag. No hair off our arses if the guy doesn’t pan out.

But it is that very reason why the Bucs stole a pair of Hurricanes this past draft.

For Ruben Bain, yeah, it’s the short arms. Joe is exhausted about this short-arm nonsense. If a guy can play, he can play. Joe doesn’t care if the dude has a baby arm, six toes, a tiny hand or has a unit the size of a house key.

Chad Reuter of NFL.com typed the Bucs took advantage of tiny red flags with Keionte Scott and Bain. And the NFL may pay for those overreactions for years.

Tampa Bay was giddy to find Bain still waiting in the green room in the middle of the first round. He should be one of the top defenders in the draft class, wreaking havoc inside and outside in the Buccaneers’ defensive system. …

Scott’s inability to fit every team’s scheme might have cost him draft position, but Tampa Bay could use the versatile defender at nickel or safety, or as a physical outside corner.

Joe thought Reuter’s take on Scott was interesting. That Scott is such a tweener that, along with his age, scared teams off.

Joe isn’t so sure about the tweener thing. OK, yeah, Joe can see how that could turn some teams off. But tweeners have been drafted high before, too.

Isaiah Simmons was a tweener coming out of Clemson in 2020. He had a couple of good years in Arizona, had over 100 tackles his second season. But he’s fallen off ever since.

Joe doesn’t think Simmons is on the verge of seeing his career go up in smoke just because he’s a tweener. Having 105 tackles in his second year sort of tells Joe the guy can play in the league. At least he could at one time.

(Shoot, Derrick Brooks was thought by some in the 1995 draft to be a tweener. He turned out OK.)

Joe thinks what hurt Scott is that he’s not a fantastic pass defender, which usually you have to be to play defensive back in the league. But Bucs coach Todd Bowles wants to use Scott in what he excels at, and that is blitzing and defending the run.

It’s good that Bowles wants to use Scott to his strengths. Joe prays that Bowles has the same epiphany with Bain.