When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted cornerback Zyon McCollum in the fifth round of the 2022 NFL Draft his Sam Houston head coach told us that while it may take a bit for him to fully evolve into an NFL defender it wasn't going to be delayed by a lack of work ethic.
"We just got done, win the National Championship, and we played in the Spring and then we come back for training camp...going into the fall season. So we did some things (like cutting down practice)...I knew the kids were burned out," coach K.C. Keeler recalled following the pandemic delayed 2020 that forced schools into an abnormally short turnaround before starting the next season. "I look out my window...and it's seven o'clock in the morning and he's out there with one of our wide receivers working on drills...I had to make a rule that you couldn't go on the field until 7:45...I just thought he was going to burn himself out. But that's just who he is."
That determination to succeed got McCollum to Tampa Bay, and now its got him making a very real impact as his team gets set to take on the Detroit Lions in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs.
“(It's) Crazy," McCollum said about the fact he and his teammates are in the final four of the NFC. "I mean, this is rare and there aren’t a lot of teams left. We’re all good, so we’re amped, hyped up, any way you can put it.”
And for McCollum, he's going to make plays for his team regardless of where they ask him to play.
According to Pro Football Focus snap-tracking McCollum got 18 snaps at safety in the Bucs' Wild Card Round win over the Philadelphia Eagles, 10 more than he had all season long at the same position.
“I’m starting to get more and more comfortable at the position," McCollum said. "I mean, any position I’m very, very comfortable with. I have the right people around me teaching me, guiding me, so any position I’m playing, I’m confident.”
Not the only safety in the family, McCollum's twin brother Tristin plays the position for the Eagles and the two were able to share a moment before, during, and after the game.
But that's where the love ends according to the defensive back.
"To me, it’s like we’re on a revenge tour at this point," he says. "Beating the [Philadelphia] Eagles and then facing the [Detroit] Lions, who we lost to earlier in the year, this is everything we would want.”
A win is what McCollum and his teammates want, but a chance to beat the San Francisco 49ers and continue their 'revenge tour' would be a close second.
Of course, a home NFC Championship Game against the Green Bay Packers would be the nicest consolation prize we've heard of, and would certainly have McCollum even more amped than he is headed into this weekend.
If that's even possible.
More must-reads: