During the NFL’s 2023 regular season, 16 former Auburn players started at least one game. When the playoffs opened last weekend, three of them started on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ defense.

For cornerbacks Carlton Davis and Jamel Dean, the Tampa Bay secondary has been like a five-season buddy movie. But linebacker K.J. Britt didn’t make his first NFL start until the 12th game of his third NFL season. Now he’s started five games since the start of December, even though he’s gotten hurt twice.

“I do love it,” Britt said. “I come to work on my tippy-toes. I have to dive in. When we get off work, that don’t mean you off. I go home – and you can ask my fiancée – I’m busy. I’m busy in the playbook. I don’t want to be the guy, so I’m just trying to make sure that I know the game plan and do the best I can.”

The Auburn trio helped the Buccaneers beat the Philadelphia Eagles 32-9 in the first round of the NFC playoffs. Tampa Bay faces the Detroit Lions at 5:30 p.m. CST Sunday at Ford Field in Detroit. CBS will televise the game.

“I’m just excited,” Britt said. “This is a playoff game on the road, man. We’re blessed to be in this situation. I’m going to make sure everybody around here knows this don’t come around this easy, and we got a chance to play and we’re going to make sure we’re able to play. …

“God’s just blessing us with the opportunity to play. We’re down here on this Earth, so we might as well just play in the full effect.”

Against the Eagles, Britt was on center stage for a spotlight play. The Bucs stopped Philadelphia’s Brotherly Shove/Tush Push/quarterback sneak on a 2-point conversion attempt after the Eagles’ touchdown. The play ended with Britt pulling Philadelphia QB Jalen Hurts back by his helmet.

“When I really jumped over him, my hand was on his back,” Britt said. “(Safety Antoine) Winfield kind of pushed my hand when I was grabbing him, and like an instant thing, I just grabbed the next closest thing. And I didn’t really mean to grab his helmet. I’m not even a dirty player. I would never ever try to do nothing like that. But I’m glad we got a stop, and I’m glad I wasn’t flagged. …

“We’re a defense, and we’re defending every blade of grass. Two-point conversion on the 1-yard line, we’re letting y’all know: Hey, we’re here. Everybody dove into it. Kudos to (defensive tackles) Vita (Vea) and Greg (Gaines). They’re really who stopped it. I just jumped over the top. They didn’t give up an inch. They didn’t give up anything for them to push, so that was just a dead play.”

For most of the games since Britt joined the Buccaneers in the fifth round of the 2021 NFL Draft, the former Oxford High School standout had to make his game-day contributions on special teams. Lavonte David and Devin White are in their fifth season together as Tampa Bay’s starting linebackers. But injuries for the long-running duo gave Britt the opportunity to show what he could do on defense, even though he got hurt himself.

In Tampa Bay’s 21-18 victory over the Carolina Panthers on Dec. 3, Britt played only seven defensive snaps in his first NFL start. He was taken by cart from the sideline medical tent to the locker room because of a back injury. But Britt was back in the lineup a week later against Atlanta, and this time, he played a career-high 65 defensive snaps and contributed a career-high eight tackles in a 29-25 victory over the Falcons.

Since then, Britt has started three of the past five games, even though he missed one with a calf injury.

Beginning with Britt’s first start, Tampa Bay has posted a 6-1 record and yielded an average of 304 yards per game to the opponent’s offense. That’s 60 fewer yards per game than the Bucs defense gave up in the first 11 games of the season.

“Just communicating,” Britt said of Tampa Bay’s defensive improvement. “Learning how to fly around, communicate, playing together, just coming together as one. We know what it takes to win in this league, and we know that if they can’t score, they can’t win, so we’re just trying to come together as a defense, communicate, fly around and just make plays.”

Detroit defeated Tampa Bay 20-6 on Oct. 15. Britt didn’t play a defensive snap in that game, although he did make three tackles on special teams. Britt is preparing to meet Lions running back David Montgomery face-to-face between the tackles on Sunday. A 1,000-yard rusher in 2023, Montgomery has run for a touchdown in four consecutive games.

“He’s a very explosive running back,” Britt said. “Knows how to run, follows his blocks well, so everybody’s got to be in that gap and know where to be at, and everybody just play the ball we’ve been playing for the last month.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.