THREE HOT TAKES FOR THE 2024 TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
For football, the summer is a time of hot takes and projections. The Buccaneers have a lot of potential and have built a good deal of anticipation heading into this season. Here are three Tampa Bay Buccaneers hot takes for the 2024 season.
1. The Buccaneers are about to have the best offensive line in the league.
A few seasons ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had one of the best offensive lines in the National Football League. With Tristan Wirfs and Donovan Smith at the tackle positions and then an interior three of Ali Marpet, Ryan Jensen, and Alex Cappa, Tampa’s starting five helped Tom Brady role play as a statue whenever he pleased. Just three seasons later, the Bucs have completely re-tooled their entire front— Tampa’s former right guard and left tackle each left to play for other NFL franchises. Their former left guard and center both retired from football (abruptly), forcing the team to pivot.
Tampa Bay's then dominant right tackle is now their dominant left tackle. They’ve invested high-round picks at guard, tackle, and center in each of the last three drafts and two of those three selections have proven to be good picks (Graham Barton has yet to get his chance to prove himself on the field). Jason Licht’s knack for picking up quality offensive linemen in the NFL Draft has been put on display again and this season Tampa Bay’s rebuild of their offensive line will be complete— Allowing the unit to climb its way back into the league’s top tier.
2. Yaya Diaby is going to explode onto the scene.
The Buccaneers drafted the aforementioned Graham Barton, a center, in the first round if this year’s NFL Draft— a consensus good pick, however, surprising for some because many tabbed edge-rusher as the team’s largest position of need. The Bucs did not place an emphasis on adding assets to that position group through free agency (They even let their best pass rusher, since 2019, seek employment elsewhere), leaving it as an obvious forecast at the Draft’s onset. Rather than addressing defense the team made the decision to invest in their offensive line. The choice of neglecting an edge defender in round one reads as a showing of faith in what the Bucs already have in the building.
Yaya Diaby, a rookie in 2023, finished his debut season with 7.5 sacks— That number was good enough to lead the team. Even more impressively, Diaby was not a day-one starter. He gradually received more and more playing time as the season progressed and Diaby, along with the team as a whole, hit his stride late in the year. All but one of Diaby’s sacks came within the team’s final nine games. Diaby’s rookie performance was stellar, but it was also overlooked by most— Who chose to give more attention to Tampa Bay’s offensive uptick during the team’s late-season rally, rather than the potential star edge-rusher they might have stolen in the third round.
3. The league’s new kickoff rules will turn Jake Camarda into a star.
Special teams received a rare, huge change this offseason. The league’s new kickoff rules will have a massive impact on every game next season. They will put more focus on three groups of players— Kick returners, the players who need to tackle/block for those kick returners, and kick off specialists. Jake Camarda is a punter, but punters have been handling kickoff duties in Tampa Bay predating the arrival of the former Georgia Bulldog.
Camarda has been the rare punter with highlights—
He has shown off a cannon of a leg and a good amount of athleticism. With greater detail and importance being placed on the skill of kicking off, talented players like Jake Camarda will have more star moments in 2024.
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2024-06-25T22:39:43Z dg43tfdfdgfd
