Tristan Wirfs Gets Rare Props
June 1st, 2023
High praise.
Now here is something you don’t see very often.
List Season is nearing.
What is List Season? It’s the time between mandatory minicamps ending and training camps opening, when players scatter all over the free world on vacation. Team offices close for a stretch and the NFL world pretty much goes dark — except for Joe who has plenty to write about each and every day.
During this period, seemingly everyone and his brother has a list. The best-this list and the best-that list. You name it.
Former Vikings and Titans shot-caller Jeff Diamond decided to come out early with his top-25 list of players aged 24 and under. No. 4 is Bucs tackle Tristan Wirfs.
4. Tristan Wirfs, OT, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tristan Wirfs was a 2020 first-round pick, and his career is off to a great start with Pro Bowl and All-Pro seasons the past two years after being All-Rookie in 2020 when he gave up only one sack. He allowed only six pressures last season at right tackle, and his elite play has prompted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to move him to left tackle in 2023.
Why did Joe type that you don’t see this often? Because rarely do you see an offensive lineman in anyone’s top-five list of players.
Yeah, if you are going top offensive players, maybe. Or certainly top tackles. But overall Wirfs is the fourth-best player under-25? That’s usually the rare air for quarterbacks, wide receivers, linebackers and pass rushers.
A tackle? That just shows you how damn great Wirfs… was?
Diamond used the perfect word to describe Wirfs: “Elite.” And this is what has Joe so spooked about moving Wirfs to left tackle. It is against every fiber of Joe’s soul to screw with elite.
You don’t see Olivia Dunne having plastic surgery, do ya?
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The top 2️⃣5️⃣ players under 2️⃣5️⃣, via a former NFL general manager
Who's missing, who's too high and who's too low? pic.twitter.com/q5pRBwuWPh
— The 33rd Team (@The33rdTeamFB) May 31, 2023
June 1st, 2023 at 4:05 am
Nice!
June 1st, 2023 at 5:50 am
Kudos to Tristan…
Can’t forget the first time I saw him jump out of the pool; they don’t make many athletes like this kid to often…We actually should be paying him now before he moves to LT unfortunately we don’t have an extra 100 mill laying around…
June 1st, 2023 at 6:38 am
I don’t think the praise is rare…Wirfs is All World. Best RT in the game hands down.
June 1st, 2023 at 6:40 am
How are they ever going to keep this guy on this team? I hope he really likes Tampa.
June 1st, 2023 at 7:46 am
Howdy Howdy lol
June 1st, 2023 at 8:08 am
You are absolutely right Joe. An O Lineman getting recognized for something in the NFL is indeed rare. Very rare. Joe Thomas Jackie Slater rare.
June 1st, 2023 at 8:20 am
Joe! THERE ya I with the negative waves! You KEEP prattling on about your fears of Wirfs sucking hind tit at left tackle, you’re gonna JINX him!
June 1st, 2023 at 8:33 am
@VATom
Money $
There’s weekly flights from Iowa to Tampa so mom can come watch the games.
June 1st, 2023 at 9:17 am
I was not in favor of moving Wirfs from right to left tackle.
June 1st, 2023 at 9:20 am
Elite is elite. I’d have more issues with the change if he had never played the left side before. But he has. Yes, in college. Just like he played right tackle in college and then dominated in the NFL. I don’t see him as being anything less than very good at the left spot. And the Olivia Dunne comment was a complete non-sequitur. We’re talking about human performance, not surgical intervention.
June 1st, 2023 at 9:26 am
Wirfs will be an All Pro left tackle. Quit your whining, Joe. “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself”.
June 1st, 2023 at 9:33 am
Joe sure as hell isn’t going to pretend he’s good with the move. Personally think its reckless.
Joe swears some people want Joe to lie and be dishonest and untruthful so they can feel good about what they read, even if it’s nonsense. smh
June 1st, 2023 at 9:39 am
Don’t know too many folks from Iowa who hate Florida.
(Funny story: Maybe 20 years ago was tailgating at the Outback Bowl. Used to go there each and every year. Thinking Iowa beat Florida in this particular game, but not sure but do know Iowa won. Had a half-full cooler of beer left after the game and kinda yelled, “Anyone want some beer?” A group of Iowa folks, maybe Iowa students, came by. One of the girls it was her first trip to Florida. It was 80-some degrees and back in Iowa it was buried under ice and snow and in the 20s. She thought she found paradise. She just kept looking around with her mouth open repeating, “This is awesome!” LOL)
June 1st, 2023 at 9:44 am
He should be no. 1.
June 1st, 2023 at 9:56 am
Olivia…😍
June 1st, 2023 at 10:21 am
Don’t worry about Wirfs getting away from Tampa. If for some reason they can’t come to an agreement on a contract they will franchise him. Licht and the entire front office should be fired if they let this guy out of Tampa.
June 1st, 2023 at 12:01 pm
Why is Antonio Wifield not on this list????
June 1st, 2023 at 12:10 pm
He’ll be fine at LT.
Go Bucs!!!
June 1st, 2023 at 1:05 pm
I’m in agreement with Joe about being hesitated to moving Wirfs to LT. Wirfs is a stud, but there is no guarantee that it will work. What happens if Wirfs is just average and Goedeke struggles at RT?
June 1st, 2023 at 2:17 pm
Like the Marpet at center experiment they can always shift him back.
June 1st, 2023 at 2:23 pm
Probably because he had a down year last year.
June 1st, 2023 at 3:48 pm
Wirfs is just that good. Will retire a legend.
June 1st, 2023 at 4:28 pm
Joe stop stressing about Wirfs at LT. I’m confident he can do it well but if not Licht is smart enough to have the coaches move him back to RT, but he needs some time at the position.
June 1st, 2023 at 5:02 pm
We are going to have to pay him like a left tackle, so we might as well see if he can play there.
June 1st, 2023 at 11:15 pm
You put your elite player at LT. Iowa runs, so they need their elite player at RT. Donnie was entrenched, so Tristan played RT. It’s literally the weirdest thing in the world you want mediocre at LT and elite at RT when it doesn’t have to be that way.
June 1st, 2023 at 11:18 pm
Joe, the reckless thing is having a non-elite player at LT WHEN YOU HAVE A TOP-2 TACKLE IN THE ENTIRE LEAGUE ON YOUR TEAM. Why can’t you see that?! Why are you covering football if you don’t know that?
June 1st, 2023 at 11:24 pm
No, seriously, you have to defend yourself here: name the starting LT to be had, either in the league, off the street, or on the team. Please do that, then you can see how asinine your logic is. It’s not about negativity, it’s about you not living in reality about the NFL.
June 1st, 2023 at 11:26 pm
He should be higher ranked than 4 overall and if he was already left tackle he would be at #3 overall
June 1st, 2023 at 11:33 pm
There were all kinds available a few months ago, free agents, drafted players or perhaps trade candidates. You don’t need a dominant left tackle to win. It helps, sure. Other teams added true left tackles in recent months.
Don’t try to claim there were no left tackles available.
June 1st, 2023 at 11:38 pm
Seem to recall Bucs won 29 games in two years, including a Super Bowl, with Donovan Smith. Not even Joe will call Smith was “elite.”
How do you know Wirfs is an “elite” left tackle? Joe has never seen him take a snap in a game at left tackle. You? Hope he is and he may be but hope doesn’t mean a hill of beans.
Joe *does know* that Wirfs was absolutely dominant at right tackle. Hall of Fame level stuff.
June 1st, 2023 at 11:51 pm
With the salary cap situation, what starting LT was ever gonna come here? They need another Mike restructure just to afford their drafts pick! Reality.
You bring up Donnie Smith. I know the Chiefs like him but he wasn’t coming back here, not at his price.
So again, either in the draft where they picked or in AFFORDABLE free agency, who is the magic *starting* left tackle that was out there? Legitimately asking you to name them, because I have no doubt you can’t. Funny how LT is so important they’re not moving Mauch there, they’re not moving Goedeke there. Yet you really think the 2nd best tackle in the entire league, the most athletic lineman on the planet, can’t face *left* to do everything he already does. LT is about speed & quickness, 2 things Tristan has more of than anyone.
June 2nd, 2023 at 3:47 am
Fact.
Good to Great Left tackles do not grow on a tree behind One Buc practice field.
Teams don’t let them get to free agency very often if they are good to great.
Average left tackles are just that…Average. Average can get your QB hurt.
We have/had no money to sign a good to great free agent left tackle.
No “projected” good to great left tackle fell to us in the draft and we didn’t reach by trading up….Maybe a mistake…Maybe no trade partners.
But I still don’t like moving Wirffs any more than you Joe.
It is a huge gamble. The biggest reason is that as of right now we have Mauch LG and Goedeke RT on the right side and very little behind Goedeke (huge question mark) as depth. Unless they shuffle the line, which is NEVER a good idea. And as has been stated if they move Wirffs back…then you are in shuffle mode again. Who is our Back-up LT? Fieler? Shuffle… Who’s his back up? Insert a Guard here, we have plenty of those, or shuffle! This could easily wind up being mess!
June 2nd, 2023 at 4:00 am
Oops
Mauch RG