Faine and Winslow Sidelined at Bucs Mini Camp

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are now three voluntary workouts into the Raheem Morris era, and are already missing a few important pieces to their '09 team.

QB Brian Griese, LT Donald Penn, RB Earnest Graham and RB Cadillac Williams have not reported yet for the voluntary practices in Tampa, Florida. Griese, who should be at practice battling with QB's Luke McCown and second-year man Josh Johnson for the starting QB position, is in Denver attending to his wife Brook, who is 8-months pregnant.

Graham and Williams are both recovering from season ending injuries and are not expected to participate for a little while. Penn is a restricted free agent and has not signed his tender offer and is therefore not currently on the Bucs roster.

More notable for the second day of the three-day mini camp is the absence on center Jeff Faine and tight end Kellen Winslow, both of whom were in attendance for day one.

Faine is sitting out of practice with an injury and will miss the remainder of the mini camp. “Everything is fine,” said Faine. “I just tweaked my back a little bit last week while weightlifting. It’s nothing serious. This is just the introduction stuff, so I can pick a lot of it up in the classroom. We’ll just let it get back to normal.”

Second-year offensive lineman Jeremy Zuttah is taking advantage of Faine's absense and showing his versatility by filling in as the first team center, splitting timewith Sean Mahan.

The reason for Winslow's absence has not yet been explained, but will likely spark speculation about his health.