This week, Bucs fans have questions about first-round reactions, spots on the depth chart that need attention, offensive goals under a new coordinator, and more

Scott Smith

In the fourth round of the 2004 NFL Draft, 21 years ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers chose Ohio State safety Will Allen with the 111th overall selection. Allen was one of 14 Buckeyes drafted that weekend, which at the time was the most ever by one school in one draft.

From the point the Buccaneers tabbed Allen through the end of last year's draft, another 134 Ohio State players heard their names called on draft weekend. None of them were taken by the Buccaneers.

This past weekend, the Buckeyes unsurprisingly the defending national champions had 14 players taken in the draft again. That's no longer a record, as Georgia placed 15 of its fellas in the 2022 draft, but it's still tied for second and gives Ohio State half of the all-time occurrences of a school sending 14 or more players into a single draft. (LSU also had 14 players drafted in 2020.)

This time, though, the Buccaneers were involved. In fact, they were the first team to dip into that deep Ohio State talent pool, grabbing wide receiver Emeka Egbuka with the 19th overall selection. Three of Egbuka's teammates would also go in the first round: guard Donovan Jackson to Minnesota at no. 24, defensive tackle Tyliek Williams to Detroit at no. 28 and tackle Josh Simmons to Kansas City at no. 32.

Yes, that marks the first time the Buccaneers have ever taken an Ohio State player in the first roundor any of the top three rounds for that matter. Allen was previously their earliest-drafted Buckeye, and overall Egbuka is just the fourth player from his school to be drafted by Tampa Bay. That list also includes 10th-round linebacker Aaron Brown in 1978 and 12th-round wide receiver Thad Jemison in 1984. Allen actually went on to a nice NFL career, spending six years each with the Bucs and Steelers and one with the Cowboys and playing in 176 games. Brown actually stuck with the Bucs for three seasons not bad for a 10th-rounder and appeared in 44 games; Jemison never played in the NFL.

Still, four players all-time from a program as robust as Ohio State seems like a strange, if completely coincidental outcome. The Bucs have drafted more players from Cal, Illinois and Arizona State, and the same amount from Fresno State and Nevada!

As for the rest of the Buccaneers' newest draft class, fourth-round outside linebacker David Walker is the biggest outlier, in terms of school of origin and franchise history. He is just the second player the Bucs have ever drafted out of Central Arkansas, joining wide receiver Tyree Davis, a seventh-rounder in 1993. Davis stuck around in Tampa for a couple seasons, mostly on the practice squad, but only played in one game.

Wide receiver Tez Johnson, the Buccaneers' seventh-round pick gives the team two straight drafts with an Oregon product, following last year's sublime selection of running back Bucky Irving in the fourth round. Prior to going Duck hunting in back-to-back drafts, the only other time Tampa Bay had ever taken a player out of Oregon was in 2006, with cornerback Justin Phinisee in the seventh round.

Similarly but a little less surprisingly, fifth-round defensive lineman Elijah Roberts is also just the third SMU product to find his way into a Buccaneers draft, and the first in almost 40 years. Cornerback Rod Johnson was the second of two first-round picks the Bucs made in 1986 (the first, regrettably, was running back Bo Jackson), and quarterback Mike Ford was a ninth-round pick in 1981.

Second-round Cornerback Benjamin Morrison and third-round cornerback Jacob Parrish were each the seventh player the Buccaneers have drafted from their schools, which were Notre Dame and Kansas State, respectively. The Bucs had taken another Notre Dame player as recently as 2021 when they snagged offensive lineman Robert Hainsey in the third round. Prior to Parrish, the most recent K-State player to be drafted by Tampa Bay was quarterback Josh Freeman in the first round in 2009.

Now on to your questions.

A reminder that you can send questions to me any time you want (@ScottSBucs) and they're easier to find if you include the hashtag #SSMailbagBucs. We are also now soliciting questions each week on our Instagram page and on the Buccaneers app; look for that on Wednesdays. As always, if you want to get a longer question into the mailbag and would prefer to email your question, you can do so [email protected].

- What was your honest reaction from us going WR at 19? I know you said you'd be shocked!

@kaylyn1_2_3, via Instagram

By the time it actually happened, I was not shocked at all, and after the Buccaneers still landed two cornerbacks that I feel very good about on Day Two, I was thrilled by the entire outcome.

That said, I can't run from this. Kaylyn is absolutely right that several times during the months leading up to the draft I reacted with skepticism to the idea that the Buccaneers would use their first-round pick on a wide receiver. My reaction in retrospect was pretty surface level; I think I noted that if the Bucs drafted another receiver given their current depth chart at the position he would be at best your third option, and even that would mean making Jalen McMillan your fourth after McMillan's very promising rookie season. Given what I felt like was a more pressing need at cornerback and/or the possibility of landing an impactful edge rusher, I figured the Bucs were more likely to go in that direction in the first round.

Of course, people like General Manager Jason Licht, Head Coach Todd Bowles and their crews are looking at this from much more of a big-picture point of view. One of the factors they surely considered was the value of the 19th overall pick and the ever-increasing value of elite-level receivers in the modern pass-happy NFL. I don't believe the Buccaneers were the only team interested in landing Emeka Egbuka around that spot in the draft, and they certainly couldn't have gotten him in the second round. Even if you have Mike Evans and Chris Godwin (and Jalen McMillan) you have to think about the opportunity to add a player of that caliber, when you don't when the next such opportunity will come around. I don't want to see Evans or Godwin go anywhere anytime soon, but it's never a bad idea to plan for the future, and we saw what happened last year when they both got hurt at the same time. Now there's a backup plan and a plan for the future of Egbuka and McMillannot too shabby!

Bowles got things going at the NFL Annual Meeting in late March when he insisted that he wouldn't pass up a great offensive player just to focus on defense, despite the imbalance in how the Bucs' offense and defense performed last year. I'm sure some of us dismissed that as, at least in part, pre-draft smokescreens, but Bowles wasn't exactly being subtle. He pointed out that scoring points wins games, and he'd be in favor of adding someone who can help the Bucs score more points.

A couple weeks later, Licht was at the podium at his pre-draft press conference saying pretty much the same thing. My colleague, Bri Dix, definitely was paying attention and maybe picking up on an overall vibe inside Bucs headquarters because in her final All-Bucs mock draft she gave the Buccaneers Texas wide receiver Matthew Golden, another player of whom I think the team thought highly. I was out of the country on vacation at the time (flex!) and when I got back I said to her, "I'm gone for a couple weeks and I get back and now we're picking receivers in the first round? What happened?"

By that point, I had to admit that all these things were adding up and that a receiver in the first round actually wasn't going to be surprising at all. But compared to some, I was very late to the game. In our final mock draft on Buccaneers.com, which Bri and I did together with alternating picks, I had the Bucs pick and I still went with cornerback Jahdae Barron. That was just me being stubborn.

Now I'm thrilled. I don't think I was wrong about cornerback being the number-one pure need on the Bucs' roster heading into the draft, but I was definitely wrong about how that need had to be addressed. Licht and company did a marvelous job in landing Notre Dame's Benjamin Morrison potentially a first-round pick had his 2024 season not ended early with hip surgery and Kansas State's Jacob Parrish in the third round. I love this picksand now we also have Emeka Egbuka on our team?! I can't deny it: Scott Smith in February or March or even early April would have been shocked by that first-round pick, but the writing was definitely on the wall by the time the actual draft rolled around.

Bucs had a great draft, but what did they not get that they need to address still?

- @klutchstastic, via Instagram

The obvious answer is off-ball linebacker. I think the Bucs at least considered using a Day One or Day Two pick at that position, but it wasn't their top priority in either case and the board didn't fall that way. For instance, I think UCLA's Carson Schwesinger was a player that would have fit well with the Buccaneers, but the fact that he went with the first pick in the second round put him in a no-man's land for Tampa Bay's draft assets. Obviously, they weren't giving up the shot to draft Egbuka in the first round, and they weren't even close to having a shot at him in the second round.

Overall, it was a very slim class of off-ball linebackers this year. Jihaad Campbell, who some see as more of an off-ball/edge tweener, went 31st overall and Schwesinger two spots later. Demetrius Knight was the only other linebacker to go in the second round, and the 49ers' selection of Nick Martin in the third round was widely viewed as a reach. Jack Kiser, Danny Stutsman, Cody Simon and Barrett Carter went in a cluster in the fourth round and Jeffrey Bassa was taken in the fifth round shortly before the Bucs nabbed defensive lineman Elijah Roberts.

"We went through the process with all of those guys," said Buccaneers Assistant General Manager Rob McCartney. "We had some guys in play today, they just happened to go in a spot where we couldn't get to them."

This is a spot where the Bucs prepared for the possibility of the draft not delivering any good opportunities to add depth. Lavonte David re-signed for a 14th season in March and will obviously fill one of the two starting spots. The team is high on third-year player SirVocea Dennis as he returns from shoulder surgery. And the addition of former Dolphin Anthony Walker gives them another experienced starter who is particularly good in pass coverage and could see a lot of action. Even long-time Falcon Deion Jones, a late addition to the practice squad last season, could factor into the mix if he's got something left in the tank.

"We feel good about Lavonte, 'Voss,' Anthony Walker; we've got Deion Jones flashing things late in the season last year. We think we've got a pretty good group in there, and we'll try to supplement it after the draft here with some good players mostly guys that can probably help us on special teams in year one and see where it goes from there."

The Bucs feel very good, and rightfully so, about their running back trio of Bucky Irving, Rachaad White and Sean Tucker, and they have first-year player D.J. Willams still in the mix, too, but probably need to add one or two more backs for training camp. There were notably no additions at safety in the draft, but the Bucs have options to start next to Antoine Winfield, beginning with second-year player Tykee Smith. Smith played primarily in the slot as a rookie, and looked good there, but could get the crack he wants at strong safety if the Bucs go with Christian Izien or rookie Jacob Parrish in the slot. There are a few young and unproven guys coming back with the likes of Kaevon Merriweather, Rashad Wisdom and Marcus Banks, but I could see the Bucs using the undrafted rookie ranks to add options at the safety position.

What is your favorite stat line from any of this year's draft picks?

- @bucs_UK, via Instagram

The Bucs generally conduct their media sessions over draft weekend in a specific way. In the first round, Jason Licht usually comes down to conduct a press conference shortly after Tampa Bay has picked, even if the round is still going on. On Day Two, one of Licht's assistants will come down either shortly after the Bucs make their last pick of the night, or at the end of the round. Same thing on Day Three. In this year's case, it was Vice President of Player Personnel Mike Biehl on Friday and Assistant General Manager Rob McCartney on Saturday.

Every year, that leaves a handful of picks after which there is no immediate media appearance, so we sometimes have to wait multiple hours to hear about a specific player or two. Fortunately for me, Licht has been gracious enough in recent years to let me speak to somebody from the draft room shortly after each of those middle-of-the-proceedings pick, and this year it was Biehl who came out to give me some idea of the kinds of players we had just selected.

As I started to question Biehl about fifth-round pick Elijah Roberts, the versatile defensive lineman out of SMU, he was scrolling through his phone. He said he was looking for a tweet someone had just sent him that had been put out by Pro Football Focus. This was that tweet:

https://x.com/PFFCollege/status/1916203678085878272

According to PFF, Roberts racked up 131 quarterback pressures since 2023, the most by any player at any position in FBS college football in that span. Of course, I rushed to put that in my story about Roberts, but I didn't even read it right to begin with. I wrote that Roberts had those nation-leading 131 pressures over the past three seasons, which I found impressive enough. But that was really over just the last two seasons which was something that my editor fortunately caught and fixed.

This stat line was fun on Friday and Saturday of the draft, because different people here in the building kept coming across it independently and sharing it with the rest of us in various platforms and apps. Every time, the person who had just found the post was incredulous at what it said. Here's a player with 131 quarterback pressures in his last 27 games (nearly five per game!), and we just got him in the fifth round? Sounds like a steal.

With another OC change this season, what should be the top 3 goals our offense should shoot to reach?

- @hyundoekim, via Instagram

Honestly, if the Bucs can simply maintain a lot of the gains they made last year under Liam Coen, that would probably be enough to make them one of the league's best offense. Some improvements on defense and we're talking about a real title contender here. I mean, the 2024 Buccaneers were fourth in points scored per game, third in net yards, fourth in rushing yards, third in passing yards, first in third-down conversion rate and fourth in red zone touchdown efficiency. Tell me you wouldn't take that combination of rankings again in 2025 if I offered them to you right now.

Specifically, to me, it starts with balance. That was the biggest stride the Buccaneers made from the 2023 season under Dave Canales (and a couple seasons before that, too), going from the 32nd-ranked rushing attack to number four and improving by an incredible 1.81 yards per carry. The pass game got better, too which was no coincidence and the Buccaneers were the only team to rank in the top five in both rushing and passing. That opens up so many options for the play-caller, who is now Josh Grizzard, who was promoted to OC from his previous job as the pass game coordinator.

Notably, Grizzard was in charge of game planning for third downs last season, as Coen smartly divided up a number of situational-football responsibilities between various assistants. With Grizzard's help, the Buccaneers shattered the franchise record for third-down conversion rate in a single season, leading the NFL at 50.93%. That would be a lofty, lofty goal for 2025; over the last decade, the 2024 Buccaneers are one of only three teams to finish with a 50-plus third down success rate. Still, getting somewhere close to that again in 2025 would be a top goal for me. The more you sustain drives, the more opportunities you create to get the ball to the Bucs' absolutely stacked corps of offensive skill position players.

That's two goals. If you're looking for one that involves the Bucs making a significant improvement in 2025 over 2024, there aren't a whole lot of options, but I'll go with this one: Interception rate. Tampa Bay's interception rate on offense last year was 2.80%, which ranked 27th in the league. Sometimes that can be difficult to overcome; notably, the Buccaneers were the only team in the bottom 10 in that category to make the playoffs, let alone win its division.

Mayfield threw 16 interceptions last season, which in no way kept him from having one of the finest seasons ever by a Buccaneers quarterback. He also threw 41 touchdown passes, amassed 4,500 passing yards (on the dot, which was neat), completed 71.4% of his passes and set a franchise record with a 106.8 passer rating. I think the Buccaneers would take the same exact season from Mayfield in 2025, and they certainly don't want to change his aggressive style of play, but imagine the same effort with, say, 10 interceptions instead of 16. If that happens and the Buccaneers are contenders again, that could put him in the MVP conversation.