Doubters Give Fuel To Dunn For the meager price of a nice breakfast, Warrick Dunn recently got back something he feared he'd lost forever. Make no mistake; Dunn was prepared to pay a lot more for the opportunity to wear his old No. 28 Bucs jersey again. You get the feeling, though, that the jersey's most recent owner had no intention of gouging Dunn during this sale. "I think it was just respect," Dunn said of second-year safety Tanard Jackson, who willingly switched to No. 36 so that Dunn could run again with the No. 28 on his back. "I think he just respected my game." Jackson isn't alone. However, outside of One Buc Place, the general belief is that Dunn's skills have begun to deteriorate. He is 33 and coming off his least productive season, the first in which he failed to gain at least 1,000 yards combined as a runner and receiver. Those numbers give credence to the doubters' claims. Dunn, though, always has been the kind of player who has fed off doubt. He did it all through college, when FSU coach Bobby Bowden thought he was too small to carry a heavy workload, and he has done it throughout his 11-year NFL career. "I just use it as motivation," Dunn said of the doubts some have about his ability to energize the Bucs offense. "But last year is last year, and I've moved on to a better place." It's a place he never really wanted to leave. But six years ago, when he jumped to the Falcons as a free agent, Tampa didn't have the money to pay Dunn what he was worth on the open market. Jon Gruden forever has lamented that fact. Even during good times, he has often referred to the departure of Dunn in the spring of 2002 as one of the Bucs' most costly losses. Now that Dunn is back via the free-agent market, Gruden is ecstatic. He doesn't seem to mind that Dunn's prime is in the past. What's left in Dunn's tank is more than enough to fuel the Bucs offense, he said. "Warrick Dunn still had 800 yards rushing last year actually 720, and he caught the ball effortlessly," Gruden said last week at the NFL owners' meetings in Palm Beach. "Inside of him, there is a war daddy. He is a threat. He can run it, catch it, pick up a blitz, and I love him. We've deepened our backfield by signing him." It's a backfield that is badly in need of depth. That was obvious Tuesday, when it became clear that Cadillac Williams remains a long way from rejoining his teammates on the practice field. While Dunn and most of the rest of the Bucs were going through their first organized workout on one field, Williams was working out two fields over under the watchful eye of a Bucs trainer. Williams did some light running, then amped up his workout by strapping a harness to his chest and pulling the trainer behind him in an effort to build strength in his surgically repaired right patellar tendon. It was painfully obvious, though, that Williams' return to regular team activity is a long way off. It even may be this time next year before he can realistically attempt a comeback, so Dunn clearly fills a great need. "I try to push him because he's key," Dunn said of Williams, "but it's going to take him some time to get back into football shape. As for myself, I'm just trying to get acclimated again." Things have changed quite a bit since Dunn last played for the Bucs. The coaching staff has changed and all but two players (Derrick Brooks and Ronde Barber) have moved on to other teams or other endeavors. Dunn seems to like the changes, though. He especially likes the Bucs' new training facility. Like wearing a Bucs jersey again, he said a new facility was something he never envisioned happening. r> "They talked about building a new facility the first year I was here," he said. "It took them a while but they obviously got it right. This is first-class. They did an amazing job." Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune 9 April 2008