Peter King of SI.com selected Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber as one of his defensive players of the week.

Writing in his weekly column (as opposed to John Romano’s weakly column) Monday Morning Quarterback, SI.com’s Peter King selects Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber as one of three NFL players as “Defensive Player of the Week.”

Of all the brilliant plays on a day when the Bucs quasi-embarrassed one of the smartest quarterbacks in recent NFL history (Drew Brees), Barber made the biggest play. With Tampa Bay up 20-10 midway through the third quarter and the Saints driving to make it much closer, Brees made a beautiful (apparently) throw to Jeremy Shockey at the goal line, and here came Barber out of nowhere — actually, off the receiver 10 yards away — and leaped and swatted the ball out of Shockey’s grasp to teammate Cato June. “It’s just knowledge,” Barber said an hour later. “They had an all-go [four receivers sprinting for the end zone], and I knew what Drew likes to do, where the ball is going to go. I knew with a linebacker on Shockey, that’s probably where he was going.” Marvelous recovery time by Barber, who made a play to save a certain touchdown.

The other two players King chose along with Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison and Dallass linebacker DeMarcus Ware.