This piece of football analysis was first published in Buccaneers Review, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ ground-breaking answer to the traditional game program. Buccaneers Review is sold at every Tampa Bay home game and it includes entirely new material, cover to cover, every issue. The magazine-style publication includes exclusive interviews with Buccaneer players and their opponents; in-depth feature stories; technical explanations of the game’s fundamentals by Buccaneers coaches, a close look at the opponent and their key players; cheerleader features; columns by Jon Gruden and long-time Buc standout Dave Moore; trivia quizzes; rosters, depth charts and much more. It is edited by Bucs UK Hall of Fame member Scott Smith. Feature: The Personal Protector In this edition of Fundamentally Speaking, Special Teams Coordinator Rich Bisaccia runs down the many responsibilities of the “personal protector” on a punting team. This position is rarely the center of attention on punts – we are more likely to watch the punter, the return man or perhaps the “flyers” sprinting downfield from their outside spots – but it is absolutely critical to executing a successful kick. Special teams coaches need a player they can trust implicitly at this spot, and here Bisaccia explains why: The personal protector on the punt team is actually the quarterback of our entire punt operation out there on the field. Just as it is for the quarterback on offense, it is his job to call the play and make sure all 11 men are headed in the right direction. Our punt unit always starts in the huddle, where the personal protector will give the intended direction of the kick and make the front call. We may have as many as three different calls in there as far as the direction, while the front will often be an automatic one we call before we actually get out there. Glossary: Front call – A description of the defensive front being played against the punting unit. Flyers – The players who line up wide in punt coverage formation, split from the rest of the line. These are the only players who can go downfield before the ball is kicked. In the box – The defensive area close to the line of scrimmage and between the two tackles on the offensive line. Set call – The signal that tells players on the punting team to get in their stances and await the snap. In space – Away from other players; often describes a situation where a tackler meets a ballcarrier one-on-one. The purpose of the huddle is to control the tempo of the game, control the clock the way we want it to run, so that is another job of the personal protector. Once the personal protector gets his unit up to the line of scrimmage, he needs to get the direction outside to the flyers, let them know which way we are going with the ball. Then he needs to give the front call. For this, the personal protector will start by determining how many men are in the box against us, and from there he’s going to give the distribution as to how many players are on each side of the center. After that he needs to direct the center or direct himself to the protection assignment for those players in the box. By doing that he’s actually giving assignments to every man in the protection scheme, letting them know specifically who they need to block. After that he will give a set call, the ball will be snapped and he will go to his assigned protection. Other than the flyers, the players on the punting unit cannot cross the line of scrimmage until the ball is kicked. At that point, everyone has a lane or coverage responsibility predicated on where the ball is caught. That includes the personal protector, whose responsibility now changes to stopping the return man. He is an important figure in that effort: Our personal protector has been anywhere from our second to third-leading tackler in our protection scheme since we’ve been here. The personal protector has to be a great athlete; we like guys that have great speed. He has to be smart, and we need him to be a playmaker for us. He has to have the ability to make plays in space and tackle guys like Reggie Bush, Michael Lewis, Steve Smith and Allen Rossum, the dangerous type of return man we face in our division. The personal protector is trying to create good field position for our defense. Kalvin Pearson has played the personal protector position for us. Dwight Smith, Mike Alstott and Aaron Stecker have all played there. We’ve had some good athletes at that spot. We’ve had guys make big plays for us there, and we’ve had guys that can understand a protection scheme like a quarterback would on offense. Our personal protectors have done the job well, getting everyone going in the right direction and to the right man so we don’t have a guy come free to the punter.