TAMPA — Today, they look fine. Young, hungry and swift.
Maybe it’s just the sweat from another August practice dripping into your eyes, but it appears the Bucs might have a pass rush capable of making life uncomfortable for opposing quarterbacks.
Tomorrow, however, they are on trial. Young, hungry and unproven.
Such is life for a pass rush that is long on potential but awfully short on recognizable and experienced disruptors of the passing game. If the Bucs are going to separate themselves from a middling pack of NFC South teams, the pass rush will need to perform better than expectations.
“They’re good athletes and they understand what people are trying to do to us,” said outside linebackers coach George Edwards. “We’ve just got to keep getting them reps, helping them understand what’s happening pre-snap, understand the guy they’re playing against from week to week. They just have to keep gaining that type of experience.”
There are a dozen storylines to follow in Tampa Bay in 2024, but the pass rush may end up being the one that ultimately stands between success and failure.
Just consider the way the Bucs attacked the offseason.
Baker Mayfield and Mike Evans were signed to contract extensions, and receiver Jalen McMillan could be the steal of the draft. So the passing game is set. Tristan Wirfs was signed to the largest contract ever given an offensive lineman, Graham Barton was chosen in the first round to take over at center, and free agent Ben Bredeson was signed to play guard. So the running game should improve.
The Bucs reacquired Jordan Whitehead to fill a two-year void at safety and signed Antoine Winfield Jr. to a fat extension. So the secondary appears to be in fine shape. Vita Vea dropped some weight, Calijah Kancey had a solid rookie season, and Lavonte David ain’t slowing down. So the run defense is solid.
That leaves the pass rush. And that’s a natural cause of concern.
Particularly after the Bucs got little pressure from the front seven in the preseason opener on Saturday in Cincinnati.
“I saw some interior pass rush that I liked, but we’ll get better at that from the outside,” head coach Todd Bowles said. “They were doing some covering, as well, so we’re working on different things with them. There were things they needed to work on.”
Getting sacks has not been a problem for the Bucs in recent seasons. At least not from an aggregate sense.
Since Bowles arrived as defensive coordinator in 2019, Tampa Bay is second in the NFL with 235 sacks. That’s a pretty impressive number to put on your coaching resume.
But, according to Pro Football Reference, the Bucs have also blitzed more than any other team since 2019. As if to emphasize that point, Winfield has more sacks (12) than any defensive back in the NFL in the past three seasons.
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Explore all your optionsThat’s not automatically a bad thing. Bowles’ blitz packages can lead to confusion and panic in the offensive huddle. But they also carry an inherent risk because they leave receivers in more one-on-one situations. Which might explain why the Bucs defense is second in sacks, first in rushing yards and 27th in passing yards since 2019.
“Schematically, that’s who we are,” Edwards said. “We are a pressure team. We’ve got guys that are going to drop, we’ve got guys that are going to rush, we’ve got guys that will cover man-to-man. It just depends on the game plan and how we attack offenses from week to week that will dictate that.
“But we’ve got a group of unselfish guys. It’s about all of us, rather than one of us. Good pass rush and good coverage go hand in hand.”
It’s easy to see why the pass rush might be considered vulnerable. There is no single edge rusher that makes a quarterback’s heart palpitate. There were 45 players in the NFL with eight or more sacks last season. None was on the Bucs.
The days of putting Jason Pierre-Paul and Shaquil Barrett on opposite sides of the line are long gone. Now the edges will be manned by Yaya Diaby, Joe Tryon-Shoyinka and Chris Braswell. They are all 25 or younger, and have 20½ career sacks between them.
Diaby, who has been slowed by an ankle injury in training camp, had an impressive debut in 2023, but Braswell is a rookie and the Bucs chose to decline Tryon-Shoyinka’s option year for 2025. So, no, that’s not a trio that will top a lot of preseason watch lists.
“We’re looking for guys to make the next-year jump,” Edwards said. “Guys that have paid attention to the details and have worked hard in the offseason.”
It’s August. The outlook always looks brighter when players are in shorts and the faces on the other side of the line are friendly.
So, yeah, the pass rush looks fine.
Today.
John Romano can be reached at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.
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