Aqib Talib will be back with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012, according to coach Raheem Morris.
The cornerback was placed on injured reserve Monday after aggravating a right hamstring injury in Saturday's game.
"Aqib is a really good football player," Morris said Tuesday. "If we can get Aqib back healthy and get him going, get him stronger, get him faster, get him better—all those things he'll do this offseason, we can't wait to go back to war with him and get him back on our football team. So he's always one of those guys like that."
Talib missed the final five games of 2010 on injured reserve with a hip problem. He played only four snaps against the Carolina Panthers on Dec. 4, was inactive at Jacksonville on Dec. 11 and lasted only a few series Saturday against the Dallas Cowboys.
Talib is scheduled to stand trial in Dallas County next March on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon stemming from his involvement in a shooting in Garland, Texas, last spring. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell met with Talib in August and cleared him to play this season but will monitor the outcome of the case. A guilty verdict would likely result in a suspension.
"Obviously, that's going to come up in time," Morris said of Talib's legal problems. "The league has put their part into that and did their due diligence as well as us, and we know we have to let that play out a little bit and be ready to deal."
How big of a loss is Talib to the Bucs?
When healthy, Talib has routinely been asked to blanket the opponent's best receiver man-to-man. He had a career-low two interceptions this year but returned both for touchdowns.
"Obviously, it's huge," Morris said. "Aqib gives you the luxury of letting him track the best wideout, and he does a nice job of doing that throughout the season for us.
"He scored two touchdowns this year. Ended up with a couple interceptions; he'd like to have a couple more. He actually dropped a few he got upset about. He probably had his best tackling season. He was more physical than he had been throughout his career, was really starting to develop on that side of the ball and really getting those guys going with this new man-to-man mentality they developed over there and was really the driving force for that."
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