Bucs Secondary, Special Teams Just Got Thinner
April 3rd, 2025
Gone again.
When Jordan Whitehead, one of the stars of the Super Bowl LV run, was brought back last year, he wasn’t the same player who played strong football when the Bucs won it all.
So, combined with Whitehead being injured and not playing well, the Bucs brought back another stud from the Bucco Bruce Arians days, safety Mike Edwards.
After Edwards left the Bucs in 2023, he went to Kansas City where he won another ring. Last year, Edwards signed with Buffalo but it didn’t work out. With the 2024 Bucs, sort of like with Whitehead, Edwards got injured. He only played in five games, started two. Now he is gone (again).
Edwards is going back to the Midwest. He signed with the Chiefs, per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network. So that makes two safeties from last season the Bucs are down before April’s NFL draft arrives.
Pretty fair bet the Bucs draft a safety at some point.
April 3rd, 2025 at 12:50 pm
If EDGE Donovan Ezeiruaku—(and a few others)—are off the board, I could see the Bucs turning their attention to safety Malaki Starks.
April 3rd, 2025 at 1:01 pm
If the CBs know their assignments, and a second ILB has more field range than a corpse, Tykee and Winfield should be solid at S.
April 3rd, 2025 at 1:41 pm
I was hoping he would come back, if you go by the PFF tribe, he did pretty well in his time on the field
April 3rd, 2025 at 1:53 pm
Starks or Emman if there….or we could pick up Jaylen Reed with a later rd….Maxen Hook with the 7th maybe?
April 3rd, 2025 at 2:17 pm
Mixed opinions on Emmanwori. Ledyard doesn’t like him as a 1st rounder.
I can see Starks being the pick if edge guys are gone, seems like Bowles type of guy. I would rather look at Watts, Winston Jr., Ransom in round 2-3.
Honestly if Ezeriraku and Barron are gone, I hope we trade back and get another 3rd. We want to hit a lot of D positions and could use another mid round pick.
April 3rd, 2025 at 2:19 pm
Like all others prioritized this off-season, if JL and staff wanted him they would have already locked him up.
Plus his agent got in his ear and reminded him to take whatever is out there b4 the draft, cause after that most openings are filled.
Non-issue really.
April 3rd, 2025 at 3:00 pm
They are not really down. We are better off without them. Just go find some in the draft or free agency
April 3rd, 2025 at 3:16 pm
I wasn’t counting on him coming back anyway and he didn’t contribute last year, so this changes nothing. Non story.
April 3rd, 2025 at 4:19 pm
Scheme and personnel are a big problem on defense
April 3rd, 2025 at 4:36 pm
A safety with size would be nice. Smith is 5-10 and Winfield is shorter than that.
April 3rd, 2025 at 4:37 pm
That picture 🤣
April 3rd, 2025 at 5:59 pm
Move Smith back to safety and draft Jahdae Barron to play nickel. It would be a huge upgrade.
April 3rd, 2025 at 7:34 pm
Right now we’re drafting for depth. Winfield & Tykee Smith will be the starters at Safety, with Izien, Merriweather and 1 draft pick as backup Safeties (and Izien as our Nickel CB). I think we’ll keep 5 Safeties.
McCollum & Dean will start at outside CB, with Bryce Hall in the wings. I’m convinced that the Bucs will keep 2 more CBs, and 1 of them will be a draft pick. I think we’ll keep 5 CBs.
As of the present moment, LVD & Walker will be the 2 starting ILBs IMO, with Dennis & a draft pick as backups initially (or to rotate in). I think we’ll keep 4 ILBs (although we might stretch it to 5 ILBs and only keep 4 OLBs; unlikely though).
I can also see us keeping 6 DLinemen & 5 OLBs, for a total of 25 on the defensive side. Another 25 on the offensive side, plus 3 S/Ts, and we’ve hit our 53-man roster.
April 3rd, 2025 at 10:22 pm
What’s the deal with that hair?
April 3rd, 2025 at 11:26 pm
simple…the offer was higher over there
April 3rd, 2025 at 11:47 pm
I always liked Edward’s. He seemed to have a knack of making key plays at the rite time. He will be missed. Teams usually keep their better playmakers. I don’t know enough about this player but I wish him well.
April 3rd, 2025 at 11:55 pm
He was meh last year, better than the other options but that isn’t saying much. They need depth across the board on defense.
April 4th, 2025 at 12:01 am
I’m not liking all this talk of Smith at safety. He got spun around too much and missed some tackles badly that have me not comfortable with him as a last line of defense. Overall I’m thrilled with him- he was one of the top performing defensive rookies in the league last year so leave him at nickel. He led the league in pass rush snaps among CBs with 57! Aaaand zero sacks but he creates turnovers and was awesome against the run except for a few rookie moments.
I’m all the way down off my early Emmanwori high but still think that if Starks is there at 19 he, Bowles and the rest of the band could make beautiful music together but the deeper I dig into Andrew Mukuba the more I like him for the Bucs in round 2. He plays with serious pop for his size but still needs to put on some good weight, clean-up his tackling some and get play action savvy but he is box, nickel and single high fluent and his ball, hand and eye skills are off the charts compared to Starks and most other DBs in this draft. He was a force of nature in the SEC championship game.
Starks is awesome, I’d be thrilled to see him a Buc- he is the total package and can be expected to be a difference maker vs the run and screens Week 1 but if the Bucs can take pass rusher at 19 and Mukuba in the second I’d be more pleased. Mukuba plus 10 lbs and a year of Bowles’ tutelage will be a seriously versatile weapon. He needs muscle to play press coverage as a nickel but will eat there like Smith does. He was Offensive Player of the Year in his District in Texas as a senior WR in high school, was the first true freshman DB to start at Clemson since 1972 and has done nothing but whoop on ACC and SEC butts since. He is a little guy but he is the right player.
April 4th, 2025 at 3:47 am
Love Edwards but I’m thinking he may be done. Tough dude here. He played hurt and did well for the most part. Good luck dude!
Go Bucs!
April 4th, 2025 at 11:12 am
Smith & Starks won a couple of Nattys it wouldn’t suck if that duo regrouped in the BUCS secondary