Jason Licht Reflects On Past Drafts, Bucky Irving’s Position
April 10th, 2025
NFL Draft hindsight with team officials is so much fun.
Why didn’t you draft this guy? How’d you know this guy was a steal? Did you know he was a steal?
It’s the kind of chatter lots of fans would be good money to hear candid talk about. Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht could probably earn $200 every half hour from fans eager to talk draft on half-hour Zoom calls with the GM.
Today, however, Licht was talking at his annual pre-draft news conference and looked back at the fourth-round pick of Bucky Irving and his stunning 2024 class as a whole.
On the Ira Kaufman Podcast in February, Licht acknowledged he had a top-5 draft class last season, even though Joe was suggesting a better ranking. Irving was a huge part of that, and Licht admitted the team’s scouting didn’t identify Irving’s full potential.
Of course, other teams didn’t, either.
“If I would have known what Bucky was capable of, I probably would taken him in the second round or first round,” Licht said. “We knew that we had a special group of guys, the individuals. But you still never know until they get out there and they start playing. So, to say that we knew that it was going to be what it was, no. But just like the two drafts [in 2022 and 2023], we came out giving high-fives, saying, ‘We’ve got great guys that are team guys, if anything, that work hard, that are team guys.’ All those things. So you knew you had a chance.”
When Licht’s team throws around post-draft high-fives in recent years, good things happen.
Joe’s hoping for more in two weeks. It goes back to the simple mantra: Just pick the right guys.
April 10th, 2025 at 12:56 pm
Did he also reflect on the prior drafts from 2017-2021? Woulda been interesting his candid thoughts on those too.
April 10th, 2025 at 1:23 pm
Licht and his scouts have generally done a great job looking at players’ character. The first three rounds are likely to be defenders, so a huge responsibility on Bowles too, in the tape evaluations. I wonder if Bowles has gone to any pro days?
April 10th, 2025 at 6:11 pm
Well Bucky is an undersized guy who didn’t have good workout numbers – but his tape was telling. Not sure why RB’s test so poor in recent years, but testing rarely seems to matter as much as the tape, and I know after we drafted him, watching the tape, I said he really reminded me of Doug Martin, and not just because he’s short, but because of the shiftiness. The offensive scheme last year put Bucky in a position to play in space where he could show off – and he vastly exceeded expections.
But this is also why you don’t draft a new RB in the 2nd round of each year like 99% of the people in the comments demand every draft.
April 10th, 2025 at 6:36 pm
Bushlover Says:
April 10th, 2025 at 12:56 pm
Did he also reflect on the prior drafts from 2017-2021? Woulda been interesting his candid thoughts on those too.
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2017 class just ended up riddled with freak injuries – OJ Howard, Beckwith, Evans. But we did get Chris Godwin in round 3.
2018 we got Vita Vea, RoJo, Carlton Davis, Alex Cappa and Jordan Whitehead. We don’t win the Super Bowl without those guys.
2019 was a bunch more players who were key to our SB run as well (Devin White, Dean, SMB and Mike Edwards).
2020 – Tristan Wirfs followed up by Winfield. Nuff said.
2021 is really the only bad draft.
April 10th, 2025 at 7:04 pm
UNBELIEVABLE
Thanks for that fact check. Some people just do not wish to give the Bucs credit and since this is supposedly a Bucs fan site I’m mystified.
April 10th, 2025 at 7:18 pm
Licht admitted he’s gotten better at the draft and I think his trend bears that out, so has his staff. He did mention his misses as well, overall been he’s good at his job.
April 10th, 2025 at 9:35 pm
I’d also point out that A LOT of teams had bad drafts in 2021… it was after the first Covid season, lots of guys didn’t play, etc.
April 11th, 2025 at 4:24 am
It seems like we really got lucky with Bucky. Thinking about another post on here and one of Ira’s podcast about Sean Payton saying how he was so focused on QB Bo Nix that he didn’t notice Bucky. And that was most of them too and are now kicking themselves. It seems as though everyone has a focus and don’t look outside that box. Jason Licht did later on, and he still gets big kudos for that. So lucky we got Bucky.