Buccaneers' 'Nacho' packs on more muscle to back up his trash talk

TAMPA, Fla. - When you have a nickname like Nacho, you just have to be funny. Buccaneers defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches, aka Nacho, backs it up.

"He’s one of the best," said coach Bruce Arians. "That’s what I love about him. Even if he doesn’t win, he’s still talking trash. That’s the best part about him – a lot of energy."

"Man, ‘Nacho’ is a ball of energy to say the least," agreed Ndamukong Suh. "I think that’s making it an understatement. Overall, he’s a good human being, very energetic and he really brings a really hard tone of football excellence and blue-collar football to the game. That’s something that I’ve enjoyed being around for the last three years. He just had a newborn baby, so we connected on that in the offseason and things of that nature. Overall, our defensive line group is super close and Nacho is one of those guys that I am close to and continue to seek friendship with outside of football."

Everyone is a target for Nacho, even the GOAT. He’s been working on getting under Tom Brady’s skin since TB12 arrived – all in good nature.

"Tom is out there every day and I was expecting the best and the most from him," said Nunez-Roches. "So every day I try to find a way to pick at him. I was getting on him today about, I'm going to keep it in house, but I was talking trash to him today."

Nacho isn’t all talk. He backs up his words with his play. He’s bigger and, he believes, better coming into his fourth season with the Bucs.

"Oh gosh, well he put on 20 solid pounds," said Arians. "He always plays with high energy but when you start talking about between 280 to 285 [pounds] and then 305 [pounds], that’s a big difference and he hasn’t lost any quickness. It’s all muscle and he’s just done a great job of continuing to improve his body so he could play even better. He’s a force in there."

And how long did it take?

"You want me to be honest how long it took me to put on 20 pounds?" asked Nunez-Roches. "I had to do some crazy things. It really took me like two and a half, three weeks to put on 20 pounds. It sounds crazy, but I had to do it in a fast time and get used to moving. What it did for my game is it made me more stout. There was a lot of things I was able to do coming into the league. I was very explosive, but all it takes for someone to ping me, I'm out of there. Now I'm able to sit down on my double teams, play my scoots, convert the pass. It's done a lot of things for my run and pass."

He’s got the muscle to match his mouth.