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TAMPA — A safety named Lynch — a player who has long sported No. 47 on the back of his jersey — returned home to Florida this week to lend a hand to the struggling Bucs defense.
No, John Lynch is staying in the Fox broadcast booth, where he's a rookie NFL analyst.
But Corey Lynch now gets a chance to one day uphold the tradition of his famous Tampa Bay football idol, after being signed Wednesday from the Bengals practice squad.
The Cape Coral native will wear No. 41 for the Bucs — not the 47 he donned while helping lead Appalachian State to Division I-AA national titles in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and earning All-America honors three times; not the 47 he wore with the Bengals after getting drafted in the sixth round last year.
"It's going to give him a little bit of notoriety just to walk in and have a Lynch on the back of a Bucs jersey, but I believe his style of play and what he does on the field will create a little bit of notoriety for No. 41," said his father, Brian, football coach at Evangelical Christian School in Fort Myers, where his son finished with 31 interceptions.
Lynch, 24, already has gained notoriety on an array of fronts.
At Appalachian State, he vaulted into the headlines in 2007 by blocking a field goal in the final seconds to preserve a stunning upset at No. 5 Michigan. And he holds the I-AA record for most passes defensed with 52, including 24 interceptions and 28 deflections.
Off the field, the 6-foot, 206-pounder and oldest of four football-playing brothers has several other claims to fame. For starters, his wife, Cissie — whom he met at college — is the granddaughter of evangelist Billy Graham.
And this summer, he was among the players featured in HBO's gritty NFL training camp series, Hard Knocks. The show revealed how Lynch did his best to make the team, after spending the second half of the 2008 season on injured reserve with a hyperextended knee. But in one of the more difficult decisions by coach Marvin Lewis and his staff, Lynch was placed on the practice squad at the end of camp.
"Being on the show was a little different," Lynch said. "Ninety-five percent of the stuff said about me and other players — the coaches had to come up to me afterwards and say, 'I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about this other player.' It was pretty much the editing. It was a little bit of a frustrating deal, but that's TV, I guess."
Still, when Lynch showed up at team meetings Wednesday, he was instantly recognized by a number of his new Bucs teammates. "We call him 'HBO,' " coach Raheem Morris said.
"It's funny — I watched all four episodes of the show, and suddenly there he was sitting next to me," cornerback Elbert Mack said. "I told him I was a huge fan of his and I was rooting for him to make the team, because I saw he had a lot of heart and a lot of fight. He's definitely got a good work ethic and a great week of practice. He's a very smart kid."
During practice Friday, Lynch made a lunging deflection of an end zone pass and a handful of teammates yelled, "HBO!"
Morris said it will be a game-day decision Sunday whether Lynch will be activated for the Giants game. But he likes what he has seen of his new player, who could add depth behind Will Allen and Sabby Piscitelli in a safety corps depleted by the four-game suspension of Tanard Jackson and the season-ending broken thumb sustained by Jermaine Phillips.
"I give the kid credit — he's come in here and he's really locked in," Morris said. "He's a really serious guy. He's learned everything we do."
Lynch, who wore No. 21 in high school as a nod to Fort Myers native Deion Sanders, simply hopes to get a chance to contribute: "Right now I want to learn the playbook 100 percent and find out what I need to do to stick. I'm not really into coming and going. I want to stay."
He would also like to get a chance to meet John Lynch.
"Ever since I was 10, I've wanted to meet him, so hopefully that'll happen," he said. "He was a big-time player. What's funny is I was watching tape of him last month in Cincinnati when he was with the Broncos. I watched a lot of tape of him, just to see how he played. So hopefully I'll get a chance to make this team and be able to help out."
Corey Lynch has already helped beyond the field — credited with saving a motorist's life. On Father's Day, he was driving on Interstate 75 in Kentucky when a car in front of him — carrying a grandmother, grandfather and their two grandkids — flipped out of control.
"I saw that everyone was all right except for the grandma — she was upside down and her head was pinned against her chest, and she couldn't breath," recalled Lynch, whose father is a firefighter. "I just hopped through the broken windows and pulled her seat up so she could breath."
Hard Knocks aired a segment of Lynch meeting the grateful family, and he has since gotten a lot of attention for his heroics.
Now, the new Lynch in town would like to contribute some on the football field.
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