Why Many Teams Might Regret Passing on Drafting Bucs LB Rueben Bain Jr.

Somebody filmed Rueben Bain Jr. staying after practice by himself for about an hour, running one pass rush after another after another. That video did the rounds last week. On Monday the show turned it into a defensive rookie of the year campaign.

Preseason appearances matter, Rich argued, especially for rookies putting up the reps and doing the work. Bain has been doing both. He bum rushed people in Kansas City. And the knock on him was never effort.

It was arm length.

That was the entire pre-draft conversation about Bain, and it is the thing the show kept circling back to, because it is the thing that clearly still lives in his head. Rich played it out from Bain's point of view: did you not see what I did in Miami? Did you not see what I did to top opponents when the chips were down, in the highest-leverage games of the year? Did you not see it? Everybody's talking about my arm length. Nobody with arms as short as mine gets drafted where I want to get drafted, let alone has the career I know I can have.

"He just seems to have a chip on his shoulder," Rich said.

Then there is the face mask, which is where this segment tipped from analysis into something closer to a bit. Somebody pulled a photo up on screen, and the design on the mask looks like Bane. Not a coincidence. Apparently it is on purpose.

"That's awesome," came the reaction, and from there the villain metaphors were unavoidable. He was born into the dark. You think darkness is your ally.

Someone at the desk called his shot: he is winning defensive player of the year. Quick correction, defensive rookie of the year. The point stood either way.

The pushback was reasonable, and it came fast. You have Caleb Downs. There is David Bailey, taken second overall. Bailey is in the mix. There are a lot of good defenders in this class, including Mansoor Delane, who is in the same building Bain is.

"My money is on Bain," Rich said.

The case is not just the highlight reel. It is Todd Bowles having him, and presumably stoking exactly the chip that is already there. It is the self-directed work ethic that showed up on that video with nobody asking. Rich admitted the clip landed harder than he expected. He saw it and thought, cool, okay, this is next level.

And then the part that gives this segment its headline.

"I am not going to stop talking about it," Rich said. "He could have been on the Rams. They wasted the pick. I'm sorry. And you know they wasted it."

That is the regret angle, and it will have a very specific test date. Cleveland comes to Tampa in Week 2, and Baker Mayfield is going to want Bain rolled downhill at Deshaun Watson.