Cardinals LB Deone Bucannon returns to practice

Arizona Cardinals insider Darren Urban has reported that inside linebacker Deone Bucannon has returned to practice. Bucannon missed the entire offseason program and training camp while he recovered from ankle surgery, and was limited in practice. He remains questionable for the team’s opening game against the Detroit Lions.
Bucannon is coming off a disappointing 2016 season, where his PFF grade of 61.8 ranked 47th of 86 qualifying linebackers. It was a significant drop off from his 2015 season, where is PFF overall grade of 82.7 ranked 14th of 90 players at the position.
Bucannon struggled against the run last year, earning a run defense grade of just 34.3, the fourth-lowest among qualifying linebackers. Against the run, Bucannon posted a tackle efficiency (the PFF metric that shows the number of tackles per miss) of 6.0, which ranked 57th of 64 linebackers with at least 55 run defense snaps.
Despite struggling against the run, he excelled in coverage, and allowed just 0.75 yards per coverage snap, which ranked sixth of 38 players with at least 280 coverage snaps. He ended the season with a coverage grade of 84.6, the eighth-highest among the league’s linebackers.