Who Will Play Center for the Buccaneers if Ryan Jensen Is Unavailable?

Byron Leftwich was coy Thursday when asked how he plans to handle the potential loss of Ryan Jensen, who has missed the last two practices with an ankle injury.

“I mean we would have to do what we have to do," Leftwich told reporters after practice. "Like I tell you, we have confidence in everybody that’s here. We’ll have to see on game day what happens with that, but we’ll see.”

You can't blame him. It's the NFL. Players and coaches fight tooth and nail to gain even the smallest of competitive advantages. And there is definitely an advantage in a defense having to prepare for multiple players at one position rather than targeting in on one starter, even if it's small in scale.

Bruce Arians gave some insight during the preseason, but it's still a guessing game right now

But if you dig back into the annals of Buccaneers lore, Leftwich's boss (yes, Bruce Arians) gave us an inside track on who would suit up for the Bucs if Jensen were to ever miss any time.

"We'd probably go with Ali [Marpet] and bring Aaron [Stinnie] in, and just bring [Robert] Hainsey along as slow and easy as we possibly can," Arians said back in late August.

The key with Arians' statement is indeed the fact that he said it close to four months ago. We aren't in the locker room and we don't attend the meetings, therefore, the only can go off what we know, what we've seen, and what the coaches are telling us.

And as of Thursday and mid-October, we really don't have any clarifications on whether or not Arians' words are still in line with the Bucs' game plan.

“We’ll see if that was to happen," Letwich said back in October when asked if Robert Hainsey had progressed enough to be the backup canter. "But he’s getting better also. He’s getting better also. Like I said, we believe in developing players. We’re not just going to sit those guys over there. We believe if you’re on this team, you’re capable of playing. I don’t have anybody on offense that I don’t trust and don’t believe in.

"So, everybody that’s over there has to always be getting themselves ready to play because that’s how I feel about them.. If need be, they’ll be ready to play.”

The pros and cons of Hainsey playing or not playing

It really boils down to one pro and one con when it comes to the overall idea of Hainsey playing or not playing.

The pro would be the rookie playing, which means he has progressed enough in the sense to where the coaching staff feels comfortable with him starting and playing. The con, obviously, is the opposite of that. Hainsey hasn't shown enough to where the staff feels comfortable, which means they'll have to shuffle their offensive line by placing their best player at a different position and play their ninth offensive linemen as opposed to just plugging in their rookie third-round pick and managing.

The good news is that Hainsey has actual, in-game reps as the team's backup center. He was on the field for 12 snaps against Miami and nine snaps against the Giants. Sure, it was mop-up duty, but you're still going against the opposing team's first-team defense.

And hey, if the staff sees what Pro Football Focus sees in Hainsey, then there's a very good chance he's shown enough improvement to receive the starting nod against the Bills. PFF has his overall blocking grade at 67.9, which would place him at 14th among centers with at least 407 snaps on the year.

But in all seriousness, while what happens with Hainsey on Sunday is nowhere near an indication as to what his future holds, it will still send a strong message if he isn't on the field snapping the ball to Tom Brady.

Or will it? This weekend represents a big game against a strong defense in the Bills. There's a chance Arians wants to rely on his veteran guys, but if he does move Ali Marpet to center, he's bringing in a guy in Nick Leverett who didn't play single snap in his career until Aaron Stinnie went down with an injury against the Colts.

And who knows? Leverett played center at times back in training camp. He could be a dark horse option.

Hopefully this all goes away by kickoff with Jensen's presence, but if not, at least we'll have answer at some point.

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