Bucs' Ronde Barber is feeling rejuvenated, considering playing a few more years

TAMPA — Cornerbacks are often made to feel like they live on an island, isolated against a receiver with solitude as their only other companion.

Ronde Barber has learned to embrace that feeling after 14 years. By adding to his glittering resume, becoming the only defensive back to record 40 career interceptions and 25 sacks with a pick Sunday at San Francisco, he's enjoying it.

"I was joking with somebody Sunday, it's kind of cool to make your own club," Barber said Wednesday. "I never intended it, but now that I'm here, it's good to be here."

At 35 and in the final year of his contract, Barber said he may want to stick around a little longer. He said being part of the youngest team in the NFL has rejuvenated his career.

The Bucs are 7-3 and one game behind Atlanta in the NFC South heading into Sunday's game at Baltimore.

Asked if he has been rejuvenated, Barber said, "A hundredfold. I can't put it into words, really. That being said, I'll try.

"I come into work every day and it's not like I'm grinding. … It's like I'm coming to hang out with a bunch of young kids, and they make me feel like I'm their age. It's not working the other way where I'm trying to make them mature.

"I'm excited to go out to practice. I'm excited about Sundays. I'm excited to watch them play but also to see what they can do. … I've never, ever been around guys this talented. … It's been a good year."

Click here to read the rest of the article by Rick Stroud of the St. Petersburg Times

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Roy Cummings of the Tampa Tribune also wrote a piece about Ronde Barber in which he compared the agless cornerback to Benjamin Button.

TAMPA — Ronde Barber has a pretty good idea what it must have been like to be Benjamin Button.

Button, a fictional character, ages backward from 70 to childhood. Barber, though closing in on his 36th birthday, says the repeated injections of youth the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have given themselves the past two years have left him feeling younger than he really is.

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