John Lynch says he's keeping a close eye tonight on Derrick Brooks' replacement

New Bucs preseason color analyst and former safety John Lynch delivered his opening shot of the day in an interview with the Mad Twitterer, aka Bucs beat writer Rick Stroud of the St. Pete Times.

Lynch, like Joe, is skeptical of the ability of Jermaine Phillips to transition in one offseason from hard-hitting safety to replacing Derrick Brooks at weakside linebacker.

Lynch had first-hand experience with such a bold attempt. He tried to pull off the same thing in New England last year.

“I’m interested to see how it goes,” Lynch said. “I tried to do the same thing in New England, and it’s more difficult than everyone thinks.” … Of the Bucs’ reasoning behind moving Phillips to linebacker, Lynch said, “The natural assumption is, ‘Well, he’s been a box safety all his life, and we’ll put (Phillips) out there.’ ” He’ll end up in the same spot, Lynch said, but the difference between lining up there and doing it from the safety spot is “a completely different deal.”

“It’s the hand-to-hand combat and all that. What’s helped him is that he had a whole offseason to prepare for it.”

Joe likes Phillips — injuries and all. Let’s all raise a Caybrew and hope together that Phillips becomes a great linebacker.

However, Joe sincerely hopes that if Phillips is indeed a fish out of water, Raheem The Dream will have the good sense to rush him back into the secondary to give that unit some much-needed depth.