Buccaneers Training Camp Takeaways: Tampa Bay Emphasizing Homegrown Talent

Head coach Todd Bowles and GM Jason Licht have quickly turned over an aging roster, rounding out a group of veteran stalwarts with talented young players.

Outside linebacker YaYa Diaby (0) is among the draft success stories for the Bucs in recent years. / Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

TAMPA—The three-time defending NFC South champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers had the Miami Dolphins in for some relatively-light work on Wednesday. (Both teams have had guys banged up, and chose to play it safe with the session). But you could still see the makings of a really good, complete team. Here are five takeaways from the time I got with them …

• One area where I’d see new offensive coordinator Liam Coen having an early impact would be in the run game. Coen has shown how meticulous he is in that area, with two stints under Sean McVay in Los Angeles serving as his classroom for learning the Shanahan zone system. What’ll help in his cause is the state of the offensive line—with Tristan Wirfs now entrenched on the left side, Luke Goedeke taking another big step toward becoming a top-shelf right tackle, and Graham Barton arriving as a middle-of-the-fairway first-round pick at center. And the backfield’s gotten a boost too, with rookie Bucky Irving bringing a physical, one-cut-and-go style of running to what starter Rachaad White and second-year man Sean Tucker have established. Irving’s looked like he’ll play the position, in that scheme, a little like Kyren Williams has for the Rams, as a guy who reads and hits seams fast.

• Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are, and have been of course, entrenched at receiver. But there’s a lot to be excited about behind those two. Trey Palmer flashed his potential as a big-play threat last year, and Jalen McMillan, the third of three Washington Huskies wideouts drafted in April, has quickly shown he belongs. He has the smarts, tenacity and toughness to play out of the slot (he’s actually shown potential to play all three receiver spots) right away. But the best story of camp might be undrafted free agent Kameron Johnson out of tiny Barton College. To illustrate this one: Barton College is a Division II school in North Carolina that just brought football back as a varsity sport in 2020 after dropping it in 1950. Johnson was a 120-pound quarterback in high school, and filled out in college to the point where now he’s a powerfully built rocket of a player. Beyond just making the team, I’d expect him to have a real role in the fall, maybe both on offense and in the return game.

Palmer leads a cast of young pass-catchers seeking to help veterans Mike Evans and Chris Godwin in 2024. / Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

• On defense, YaYa Diaby, who escaped an injury scare earlier in camp, is trending toward being the team’s best pass rusher. An athletic freak at 6’3” and 276 pounds with 4.5 speed, Diaby came into the league a bit raw after being deployed as an inside rusher a lot in college. That said, he had enough as a rookie to register 7.5 sacks, and has really developed as a powerful, cat-quick edge player. It’s a good bet he’ll have double-digits sack numbers this year, health permitting, and a weekly matchup problem.

• Perhaps the Buccaneers’ biggest question is at corner, where there are some moving parts, and crossed fingers that Jamel Dean can stay healthy. That said, Zyon McCollum has shown in just about every way that Tampa’s confidence in him, which gave the Bucs the flexibility to trade Carlton Davis III, will be rewarded. McCollum’s a fast, long, 6’2” corner who’s been developed over two years, started nine games last year, and was one of the stars of the joint practice I was at with the Dolphins—picking off Tua Tagovailoa almost right away in team drills. Bottom line: If the Bucs are good at corner, McCollum will be a big part of that equation—one that still needs some depth sprinkled in.

• McCollum, McMillan and Diaby are just a few of the draft-and-develop success stories here over the past few years. Twenty-two of the 23 players the Bucs have drafted over the past three years are still with the team, and all of them have an excellent shot at making the 53-man roster. When that roster is done, there’s a really good chance that, including the college free agents (such as Johnson), more than half of the 53 guys making the team will be homegrown through those three draft cycles. Really, it’s pretty much exactly what the Bucs needed coming out of the Tom Brady Era, when they’d eat dead money and need to get younger—outside of Evans, Godwin, Lavonte David, William Gholston and Vita Vea, the team here is really young. And Baker Mayfield, who’s come back locked in, having moved his family full-time to Tampa in the offseason, is still just 29, giving him a lot of runway as a quarterback. There’s no denying the job the coaches and scouts here, led by Todd Bowles and Jason Licht, have done in turning over what was an older roster.