Another Big Step For Graham Barton
August 17th, 2024
Joe is fired up!
Rookie first-round pick Graham Barton made his first start tonight in Jacksonville and not only did Barton look good as a blocker, his snaps were clean and Joe thinks it’s obvious Barton was playing faster and with more confidence.
In simple terms, the Bucs very much viewed Barton as a 2024 savior. You don’t draft a center in Round 1 unless you think he’s an immediate difference-maker. If you’re not sure, you do what most teams do: find a center in a later round.
But the Bucs bet on Barton to change their horrid round game and finally be the type of player that could replace the huge void left by Super Bowl center Ryan Jensen’s knee injury in 2022.
Yes, the Jaguars were playing second-teamers on defense, but Joe doesn’t care. For Joe, tonight was more about Barton showing for the second consecutive week that he cleaned up his snapping and that he could be in full command as a blocker.
Joe can say that Barton looked solid against Jaguars’ first-teamers in Wednesday’s practice in pads under the broiling Jacksonville sun.
On Friday comes an even bigger test, Barton snapping to Baker Mayfield as the Bucs starters will play in the preseason finale against Miami.
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August 17th, 2024 at 11:55 pm
Barton will be a great center.
Once he plays against the defesive starters, and the real denses, he will struggle.
Every rookie does.
What is a concern- is that we started Graham, Bredesen, and Mauch.
Against the Jags backups, was Anyone impressed?
August 18th, 2024 at 12:08 am
Agreed. We only scored 7.
Are we that bad or is jax really good?
August 18th, 2024 at 12:14 am
I went to the game. Early on we did a pretty good job running the ball. But Trask is trash. Missed wide open wr’s and held the ball too long. Then receivers just stopped getting open at some point. Like they were running the same routes or something..
August 18th, 2024 at 12:53 am
I don’t see Barton struggling Capt.Tim. Maybe I’m taking your words wrong, he is going to make a few mistakes, hardly anyone is immune to that. I think he is too smart and athletic to “struggle”.
When Barton, Brederson and Mauch were in there, I still saw push. Clearest improvement on this team so far is along the OL. Bucs offense will be dangerous.
August 18th, 2024 at 3:25 am
“If you want to destroy my sweater….pull this string as i walk away….ill be unraveled and soon be naked”
its preseason guys…enjoy this 🙂
August 18th, 2024 at 3:26 am
Barton is the man btw….sorry lol
August 18th, 2024 at 3:31 am
“hold this thread as i walk away”….my bad, havent heard it in a long time
August 18th, 2024 at 4:44 am
Sasksbucs,
Every rookie struggles his first season. Barton is playing against 2nd and 3rd stringers. Plus teams aren’t showing their real defense in Pre Season. It will take Barton, or any Rookie,time to adjust. Its normal. I think he’s gonna be great. Hes looking good now. He’ll be ok. Next year, He’ll be a terror.
Its Mauch and Bredesen that concern me.
Its normally crazy to start two rookies, but its Elijah Klein that looks like our best guard. He’d have rookie problems too, but he is really pushing people around right now.
August 18th, 2024 at 6:19 am
Good gracious, it’s only one preseason game. All in on Graham as center. Yes, some growing pains, but he has the drive and can get it done. Thompson did a real good job. Bucky, and others too.
The Jags were home and did have a momentum. Great to see Buc fans there. Go Bucs!!
August 18th, 2024 at 6:39 am
To many Oline platooning in to get anything going on offense that looked lost tonight. Barton did great when in, he’s the least of my worries. Our secondary looked completey lost. Jags were wide arse open, running free. Maybe we shouldn’t be cross training players to play all different positions. The defense is complex, maybe let the young guys master one spot before moving them all over. Few bright spots, 3rd down conversion rate was rediculous. John Wolford was John Woefull tonight, Trask not much better. QB should be in play for the Bucs in next years draft. John, and Kyle ain’t it.
August 18th, 2024 at 6:45 am
Well, I thought he did pretty well. TBH, I thought it was an entertaining preseason game. I may have had some qualms about the Shiite tackling. My only complaint.
August 18th, 2024 at 6:48 am
My biggest pet peeve has always been missed tackles.
August 18th, 2024 at 7:23 am
Regarding the O line and those of you with concerns about last night’s “starters”. Wirfs wasn’t in. Anyone remember what a huge difference and massive improvement the line made when, earlier in training camp Wirfs didn’t practice v. when he did. In the famous words of whack job Aaron Rodgers. “REEELAX.”
August 18th, 2024 at 7:52 am
Wow Lt. Dan, I had quoted Aaron in another thread. Great minds, and great advice for watching preseason football.
August 18th, 2024 at 8:52 am
Points in preseason mean nothing. Bucs won 13 games in 2021 and during the preseason they lost to the titans 34-3
August 18th, 2024 at 9:00 am
Barton is going to be that underrated draft selection that elevates this offense along with McMillan, Culp and Irving.
Crazy to think about but there is a chance this offense may be able to carry this team and not the defense.
August 18th, 2024 at 9:14 am
Heck, they don’t even need to carry them. It would just be nice to see them do their fair share of the work.
August 18th, 2024 at 10:18 am
GB62 will turn out to be the Bucs best 1st round draft pick since grabbing TW78! Glad to see him producing already.
August 18th, 2024 at 11:18 am
Joe, you seem to be a big Barton supporter, but I don’t see why you care since it is only a worthless preseason game. You seem to be in a real conundrum liking some things players are doing, but writing these preseason games are worthless.
August 18th, 2024 at 11:31 am
@MadMax
Listening to a little too much Weezer there.😀
August 18th, 2024 at 11:33 am
Could this be one time we actually be THANKING LOGAN HALL? Sorry Jensen.🤦
August 18th, 2024 at 11:36 am
Can Barton play deep middle zone? No one else can.
August 18th, 2024 at 12:13 pm
Infomeplease,
Totally agree. Barton is going to be a beast. Starting to think Klein may be a huge steal also
August 18th, 2024 at 12:19 pm
Lt. Dan,
neither starting tackle played, but ALL of the interior line starters played. All 3 started the game against The Jags backups.
August 18th, 2024 at 1:20 pm
Love this news! Even though Mayfield did exceedingly well while under tremendous defensive pressure on nearly every pass attempt (see PFF), I am hopefully optimistic that he can do much better this season with just a tad more time to complete passes. It will also, hopefully, keep him healthy because I don’t see the team winning against any tough opponents with their current backup QBs. Go Bucs!
August 18th, 2024 at 1:55 pm
It’s time to start the backup coaches. Let’s see what we have in Darcy Glazer.
August 18th, 2024 at 2:33 pm
@Tony, i was 20 when they came out and was jammin to Pantera and old school Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth….they were my “light” go to when i needed something a little calmer lol
August 18th, 2024 at 3:08 pm
I watched him on a good number of plays – just live with no replays – and from what I saw he was pretty easily handling his man in pass protection. Again, you should expect that since it was 2nd and 3rd stringers, still, it was good to see. He looked very natural.
There’s some excellent positional breakdowns all over YouTube, I particular like A to Z Sports Film Room, it’s worth searching out and watching his stuff – but there’s others who also sound like they know what they’re talking about. In any case they show the snaps and you can see how he’s handling guys. He really does look like a natural out there.
Licht knows his offensive lineman, so I wouldn’t expect him to be anything other than a star when drafted that high, and the initial returns are excellent.
August 18th, 2024 at 5:31 pm
Tempering what I saw in this game.
Barton looked good and what we hoped we’d see to this point. Next step starts next week. I agree that he will struggle with the rookie adjustment . He will also struggle when he is introduced to non-vanilla defensive line complexities, as well as the unbelievable NFL starting talent. He just will. All the staff knows this, sonIm sure they have a plan for it. Part of the plan is to expose him to the shock, then work to find a way to deal with it within the scheme.
Trask may be struggling with learning the system, but for most of the game against 2nd/3rd string, his recognition wasn’t very high. When he had good field position, he was able to score. When he came in to replace Wolford after he was knocked out, he did move the ball well, until he couldn’t score (and not against “good players”). Not feeling great about QB2 options.
I-line without Wirffs isn’t good, some good depth and some developed. Worked to improve the running game – any wait to see this next week starters vs starters. We’ll get an even better look as to the talent, and how well the talent has adapted to the new scheme.
Secondary: I’m hoping it doesn’t look like what I was concerned it would. A hybrid scheme, with jags that aren’t very good. Good to great safety play, really weak corners.
D-line looks good, but edge is going to be similar to secondary – platoon with some average talent. Maybe someone will develop. Maybe Yaya will take another step… haven’t seen much there’s
Money McLaughlin didn’t pay off last night ‘, maybe it was pre-season adjustments. Will be looking for him to shake that off next week.
That new kick off rule looked like something Rich McKay would design. Complexity that doesn’t actually work to achieve/avoid anything that works. No excitement and ends up with the same results.
August 18th, 2024 at 6:06 pm
Good stuff Rod Munch. Thanks for the heads up.
August 18th, 2024 at 7:20 pm
White Tiger Says:
August 18th, 2024 at 5:31 pm
Tempering what I saw in this game.
Barton looked good and what we hoped we’d see to this point. Next step starts next week. I agree that he will struggle with the rookie adjustment . He will also struggle when he is introduced to non-vanilla defensive line complexities, as well as the unbelievable NFL starting talent.
———–
We’ll see, if he truly had never played center before I’d think this was a much bigger deal – but he does have a full year of playing it before so he might pick up on stuff a lot faster than expected. It’s possible he’s more Ali Marpet than anything else, a guy who can just go out day 1 and be a solid starter, borderline pro-bowl player right away. But you’re correct, center is a tough position on rookies, so I’d expect to see a number of blown plays – hopefully they just turn into lost yards on runs or sacks and not turnovers. But man, you can see why Licht wants him out there, he’s going to be very very good even if there’s a few hiccups early on.
As for Trask – hard to take anything away from the game. The first half was just sloppy preseason nonsense with a ton of backups – we have no idea on a couple of the throws if Trask was off or if the receivers were running the wrong routes. At the end of game – that sack can’t happen, but he lead them right down the field coming off the bench and had all the momentum in the world until they call a run right up the middle inside of 30 seconds which derailed everything. Also his receivers were just not getting open – when you got Evans, Godwin and perhaps McMillian out there, I don’t think that will be as big of an issue – if Trask ever sees regular season snaps.
August 18th, 2024 at 11:45 pm
Trask was staring down his receivers every time he threw the ball. Never looks off and comes back . Too far into his career to be doing that . Huge gator fan BTW.
August 19th, 2024 at 5:30 am
He is what Jason thought.
The others?Wirfs is a God. Mauch looks good. Bredeson? Will the glass eater be even better this year?
The depth guys except Walton look solid. Even the Big German Metz looked like he could play. Shame Dzansi got hurt. Wanted to see more of him.
Go Bucs!