Phillip Buchanon Is An Offensive-Minded Defender

When Phillip Buchanon was growing up, it seems like he wanted to be a lot of things other than what he ended up being.

When Buchanon, a cornerback who the Washington Redskins signed to a free agent contract this offseason, first started playing football, he wanted to be on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

“I’m an offensive player at heart,” he told Comcast SportsNet’s Ivan Carter on Washington Post Live. “Anytime we get a chance to touch a ball, I’m going to be very excited trying to make it to the end zone.”

“That’s always been my passion since day one playing football. I played running back, messed around a little at quarterback and played receiver, so I love touching the ball and I love trying to score with it,” he said. “I look forward to making some big plays.”

Buchanon was quite a baseball player. He was good enough, in fact, to warrant a $500 thousand contract offer from the Cincinnati Reds when he graduated from Lehigh High School in Fort Myers, Florida. He decided to accept a football scholarship to Miami instead.

“Florida is a major football state,” Buchanon said. “I had a lot of my buddies telling me, we know you’re into baseball, but you should stick to football because that’s what we do.”

Buchanon expressed a tinge of regret when topics such as the contract that the Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer recently inked (8 years, $184 million, all of it guaranteed) was brought up.

“When I look back on it I think, ‘Man, I missed out on a lot of money,’” he said.

Buchanon, 29 and entering his ninth NFL season, got a modest contract from the Redskins, a one-year deal worth $1.5 million with another $750 thousand in incentives. He came to Washington because of his familiarity with some of the people on the team. Santana Moss and Clinton Portis were teammates at Miami, and Bruce Allen was the general manager during Buchanon’s stints in Oakland and Tampa Bay.

He also likes the atmosphere around Redskins Park.  “They treat you how you approach the game,” said Buchanon. “If you approach the game like a professional, the coach is going to treat you that way. I like that. I’ve been on teams that are too young, and the coaches run you into the ground.”

Buchanon, in fact, almost became a Redskin several years ago. In 2005 the Raiders, who drafted Buchanon 17th overall in 2002, put the cornerback up on the trading block. The Redskins were one of the interested teams, and Washington was on Buchanon’s list of teams he wanted to play for. But he ended up being dealt to Houston.

There has been discussion of Buchanon filling the Redskins’ need for a punt returner in addition to his defensive duties.

“That’s something we’ve talked about, so I’m definitely involved in that and looking forward to that,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

He has a career average of 9.1 yards per punt return with three touchdowns (although none since 2003).

Something else that Buchanon might bring to the Redskins is the pick six. He has scored five touchdowns on interceptions returns during his career, and that is an element that has been missing from the Redskins’ defense for quite some time.

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(csnwashington.com)