Three Pass Rushers Are Mandatory?
March 25th, 2024
One of the most fun stories from the Buccaneers’ Super Bowl win a few years ago came from Jason Pierre-Paul.
The high-octane edge rusher simply did not want to come off the field. He hated resting and it’s why even at 31 years old he played nearly 1,000 snaps in that 2020 season, plus four postseason games.
Bucs sacks king Shaq Barrett also played a hefty load of snaps in his first two Bucs seasons (2019 and 2020) before cutting back in recent years.
While Shaq, now with the Dolphins, won a ring on what essentially was a two-rusher team, he was adamant while speaking with MiamiDolphins.com last week that teams need three edge rushers. Shaq cited fatigue in games and the need for the rotational third edge rusher to have as much juice as the starters in spot duty.
The Bucs’ depth chart at edge rusher now has YaYa Diaby on top as he enters his second season followed by either Joe Tryon-Shoyinka and Anthony Nelson. Ironically, Nelson and Tryon-Shoyinka get to quarterbacks at nearly the exact same substandard rate, if you consider their total quarterback hits and sacks against their career snap counts.
Hearing Shaq talk about needing three pass rushers had Joe pacing the halls of JoeBucsFan.com world headquarters mumbling that the Bucs don’t even have two. However, Joe has to be real. The Lions landed in the NFC Championship game with only one legitimate pass rusher on their roster.
Perhaps the Bucs front office can talk Detroit into taking Tryon-Shoyinka off their hands for a draft pick, much like they did Carlton Davis earlier this month?
March 25th, 2024 at 11:38 am
Yeh in your dreams
March 25th, 2024 at 11:42 am
lol@Jts being worth anything.
March 25th, 2024 at 11:42 am
The SB year was incredibly stacked up front….Vea, Suh, JPP, Shaq, White, David. It was a pick your poison scenario for the opposing team. All those guys could win their 1 on 1 matchups. No matter who got doubled, there was a pressure coming regardless. Throw in the fact our offense was putting up points which kept pressure on the opposing team to keep pace, it played perfectly into how the defense was built.
March 25th, 2024 at 12:06 pm
Don’t forget Calijah Kancey as well—not that he will replace the production of an edge rusher, but he should take a step forward in his second year and help supply more consistent pressure that could help out the OLBs.
March 25th, 2024 at 12:08 pm
Move Kancey to the edge !!
March 25th, 2024 at 12:09 pm
It’s funny that we talk about JTS and Nelson like they are bums but that Shaq was a huge loss when we got the exact same production out of them all.
March 25th, 2024 at 12:12 pm
I have little faith in the Bucs ability to draft pass rushers. Yaya Diaby has a chance to break a putrid 30 year trend but it’s scary to see that out of the 10 pass rushers the Bucs drafted in the first two rounds since 1993 only TWO earned more than 15 sacks in their ENTIRE time they played for the Buccaneers.
In fact, if Yaya just matches his production from last year he will be the Bucs 1st drafted pass rusher to reach 15 sacks in his first two seasons since HOFer LEE ROY SELMON himself.
Putrid.
Please trade for a pass rusher Jason!
March 25th, 2024 at 12:21 pm
JTS is a headless chicken who celebrates after he whiffs. And he single-handedly almost cost the Bucs their season when he had Ridder dead to rights and totally whiffed, allowing him to score a touchdown. He sucks with capital letters.
March 25th, 2024 at 12:22 pm
what if:
joe sho has 7 to 8 sacks this season……..
then what do you do with him ???
March 25th, 2024 at 12:38 pm
JPP was irreplaceable
March 25th, 2024 at 12:51 pm
the d had a lot of hungry frothy dudes…
jpp, suh, vita, will……linebackers galore…DW loved football and wasn’t back peddling for nobody…it was a beastly group when they got feral…
gravediggers in full effect on the back end…
tommy b…
receivers out the azz…
what a squad…
shoulda won 2, back to back, before gisele kinda neutered tommy that last year with girl game
March 25th, 2024 at 1:11 pm
Saying this over and over doesn’t change anything
March 25th, 2024 at 1:52 pm
“ Bucs Fan Says:
March 25th, 2024 at 12:12 pm
I have little faith in the Bucs ability to draft pass rushers. Yaya Diaby has a chance to break a putrid 30 year trend but it’s scary to see that out of the 10 pass rushers the Bucs drafted in the first two rounds since 1993 only TWO earned more than 15 sacks in their ENTIRE time they played for the Buccaneers.
In fact, if Yaya just matches his production from last year he will be the Bucs 1st drafted pass rusher to reach 15 sacks in his first two seasons since HOFer LEE ROY SELMON himself.
Putrid.
Please trade for a pass rusher Jason!”
This is no joke. The interesting thing now is they don’t stand pat. They keep going until they get what they want. They are same with qbs and running backs
March 25th, 2024 at 2:01 pm
808bucfan … ‘Move Kancey to the edge !!’
Kancey appears to be one of those guys who could play just about every position on the DLine (well, except NT). Todd Bowles is well known for changing things up to bring pressure from anywhere & everywhere. I don’t expect Kancey to get double-digit sacks in this defense (yet), but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets close to that. Diaby seems to have that same potential, but I’d expect closer to 3-6 sacks at most from about a half dozen of our other defensive players.
Last season for instance we had 6 defensive players log 3-6 sacks besides Kancey). We had 7 guys log in that 3-6 range in 2022, and 6 in 2021, but only 3 in 2020 (although JPP, White & Shaq additionally logged 26.5 sacks among them that year).
March 25th, 2024 at 2:24 pm
Just did a mock where i traded back into early R2 from 26 after all the top dogs were gone at Edge and interior OL
R2 Edge Darius Robinson R2
R2 OC Zack Frazier R2
R3 Edge Marshawn Kneeland R3
R3 WR Jalen McMillan
R3 OG Dominick Puni
R4 RB Jaylen WRight
Even without a trade back i could easily see us going edge twice between R1-R2 and R3.
This draft value lines up nicely with needs and picks in terms of R2-R3 value of depth at OG/RB/DE and ILB/WR
March 25th, 2024 at 2:28 pm
Kancey and Vea are literal massive factors here as well. Kancey should take a big step with a real NFL off-season, and Vita is already a terrifying presence on that interior.
March 25th, 2024 at 2:52 pm
Licht has tried to get the D Line up to a nice level he’s just whiffed badly on JTS and Logan Hall
D line is baaaaaaadddddddddd
March 25th, 2024 at 3:16 pm
This is not a knock on Jason. I love the guy and so happy he’s our GM. He’s got a great track record with O-lineman but man vea is really his only good pick for D-lineman and vea is a part time player at that lol. Itd be great if kancey and yaya take off this year but that’s hoping and that’s no good. Jason needs to trade for a proven edge rusher like JPP wasn’t he had for like a 4th and he turned out great for us. I know we let Micheal Bennett walk back in the day to the hawks but did we draft him ? Our drafting of D-lineman and a terrible and it dates way back. Kinda like drafting a QB for us lol
March 25th, 2024 at 3:49 pm
I’m all in with cha on the pass rush Joe. We’d better find one from somewhere this upcoming season. If we are depending on Joe Tryon then God help us.
March 25th, 2024 at 3:53 pm
We have not had a premier pick for a stud d lineman. After the top 10 level guys it’s a crapshoot.
March 25th, 2024 at 4:12 pm
A lot of teams haven’t drafted a stud edge defender all it means is that the draft is a crap shoot.
March 25th, 2024 at 4:35 pm
Sure and fire Dan Campbell too.
March 25th, 2024 at 4:57 pm
Pass rush has not been the same since JPP and Suh left. It’s as simple as that.
Kancey is going to be real good, but can Vea get back to form? I thought he was a huge disappointment last year. Completely disappeared for way too many stretches in way too many games.
But I agree 100% with you Joe, we need someone proven on the other side of YaYa. JTS and Nelson can be the “third” option (Nelson seems to do best in that part time role).
March 25th, 2024 at 5:19 pm
Cam Gill over JTS in a heartbeat
March 25th, 2024 at 5:58 pm
“Ironically, Nelson and Tryon-Shoyinka get to quarterbacks at nearly the exact same substandard rate”
——-
Amazing, considering all the jackballs in the comments that do nothing but complain about JTS while praising Nelson.
In any case, you don’t need pass rushers when you’re just going to sit back in a passive zone all year.
March 25th, 2024 at 6:05 pm
Dave Pear Says:
JTS is a headless chicken who celebrates after he whiffs. And he single-handedly almost cost the Bucs their season when he had Ridder dead to rights and totally whiffed, allowing him to score a touchdown. He sucks with capital letters.
Amen to that Dave Pear. Did u see the bonehead play with JTS against Joe Burrows in 2022?
adam from ny Says:
what if:
joe sho has 7 to 8 sacks this season……..
Adam from ny, if a frog had a glass butt everytime he jumped it’ll break, if.
What if JTS had replaced JPP
What if JTS had played 4 yrs college vs 2 yrs, he has 3 yrs nfl experience n still plays like a FA
What if JTS wouldve made all those missed tackles over the years, he couldn’t that’s why he missed them
What is JTS wouldve avoided the number of bonehead plays made over the years. He couldn’t, that’s why he still make bonehead plays
What if Bucs gave dolphins extra picks in 2021 draft to move up to select Jaelin Phillips instead of JTS. JTS made 8 sacks his draft year. He should’ve been drafted mid round or FA at best. Why was he selected 1st round?
JTS is not nfl material, doesn’t have the intelligence nor physicality for the nfl game. Drafted first round based on potential, 2 years college experience with 9 total sacks.
March 25th, 2024 at 6:09 pm
unbelievable Says:
March 25th, 2024 at 4:57 pm
Pass rush has not been the same since JPP and Suh left. It’s as simple as that.
———
Yeah, but the Bucs have also not ran the same scheme. Remember all those ‘exotic’ blitzes we always heard about? What happened to them? They were replaced by zone, lots and lots of zone. Bowles flat out seems scared to blitz more than 5 anymore – it happens from time to time, but Bowles has coached scared on defense since the Bucs lost that Rams game in the playoffs.
That’s my take.
Defense Rules – if you see this, and you have numbers to show otherwise, I’d love to see them. I have no idea why it’s so hard to find blitz numbers, but I’d love to know what the 6+ man blitz rate was when Arians was here vs the last two years. It seems much lower, but perhaps I’m wrong.
March 25th, 2024 at 9:13 pm
I’m looking forward to seeing what Markees Watts and Jose Ramirez can do next year. Jose is a real question, he looked good in camp before he was injured. Watts should have gotten more playing time last year he had the best Qb pressure rate on the team and wasn’t bad at run defense. Keep in mind this is the group that Bowlers thought was the deepest best position group going into the final cuts last year.
The Bucs will definitely bring in a low cost vet and draft a OLB in this draft. One one or 2 UFAs and that’s gonna be it. They’re not going to break the bank on a established vet. They feel too good about these young guys.
March 26th, 2024 at 2:52 am
You attack JTS.
But you defend Hainsey?
You attack Bowles. But you defend Hainsey?
Am I smelling a form of prejudice Joe?