Why a former 250-pound lacrosse player is Bucs’ future leader on offensive line

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

There are many reasons why the Bucs liked Duke’s Graham Barton enough to make him their first-round pick and the first interior offensive lineman selected in the 2024 NFL Draft, but one of them is athleticism rare enough that you can ask his high school lacrosse coach about it.

“He was still a pretty big kid. He just wasn’t quite as monstrous as he is now,” said Alan Garner, who coached Barton for two years at Ravenwood High in Brentwood, Tennessee. “He was probably 250 pounds when he played for us, and he could have played for us later if he wasn’t getting recruited for football, even at his size at 280 or 290, no problem. Obviously with Graham, his footwork is fantastic, and it’s about how well you move with the size that you have.”

Lacrosse isn’t typically a big man’s sport — even a defender, which Barton was, is ideally around 215 pounds on the high end. But Barton was still a natural in a sport he grew up playing, requiring mobility and stamina to cover a large playing field.

“It’s a big field, bigger than a soccer field, bigger than a football field, so you have to be able to go side to side and up and down,” Garner said. “He played defense, but there are times you have to take the ball to the offensive side and be active at a quick pace.”

That dual-sport background helped Barton become one of the most athletic offensive linemen ever tested at the NFL Combine. Now measuring 6-foot-5 and 311 pounds, he still ran the 40-yard dash in 4.95 seconds. There’s a stat called Relative Athletic Score that combines all of an athlete’s measurables on a 10-point scale, and Barton had a 9.99, ranking as the third-highest ever out of 1,500-plus athletes tested at his position.

Barton will be a center for the Bucs, a position he played as a freshman at Duke before moving to left tackle the last three seasons. Four years at Duke reinforced his reputation as a smart, physical leader, something…

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Publish date : 2024-05-06 14:48:01

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