Takeaways From OTA Practices, Secondary Depth | Bucs Insider

with the team. So, uh, first, well, just any kind of big takeaways from O t A so far, some of the moments of podium and I we have a few different things we're going to get into, but just kind of big picture. Well, it is interesting some of the veterans that have showed up recently, like this week, Shaq Barron and Devin White and Vida vet has been

there the whole time. There's a good number of veterans there and the turnout has been pretty impressive because remember these are completely voluntary and really the entire NFL has sort of trended the last couple of years towards this being more about the young players. Those are the guys that the team wants to get the most snaps right now, so that, as as Todd Bowles put it on two Day, they get enough set, They get enough foundation set so that when they hit training camp they can hit the

ground running and they can reasonably compete. They'll know enough to be close enough to the veterans in their knowledge to be able to compete, and they're not just trying from square one. So that's what most of it's about. But you still have some of these guys showing up like Devin White or Shack or that they have a reason they're in the area. Check says, I'm in the area, why would I not show up at work and try to get better? So, um, there's no there's that's not

to contrast to anybody that's not here. There's perfectly good reasons not to be here. And again it's incredible and completely that's what I'm looking for voluntary. But some of these guys see the value in it, Like a Devin White's working on his diet and his training, and he also there's new wrinkles to the defense apparently that they're installing, and so he wants to get that and learn it in person. So, um, that's what a lot of it's about for those guys. But really the main purpose of

this time is to help the young guys. And I know Russell Gauge is one of these new guys that we haven't talked a ton about yet because he's not a draft pick. We spent a lot of time on the draft, and uh, now he's the guy that I think can maybe that signing maybe even been a little overlooked. Now it's been a bit and a bit of a refresher and we got to hear Antoine Winfield Jr. Talk about him. So what do you feel like you learned

in that? Well, first of all, about Russell Gauge, he is here, he's he's at the facility while these okayes are going on, but he's not working out right now. He coach wasn't really specific about his injuries. He just says he's getting treatment and he's kind of sore, but it won't be an issue for training camp. But really

it's not that big of a deal. You could say he might be trying to work on chemistry with Todd tom Brady, you know, because Tom Brady is famously very specific about how he likes his guys to run their routes. But Tom Brady hasn't really been working yet, hasn't been there either, so he doesn't he doesn't really need to work on his chemistry with Cole Trask. But yeah, I

think everybody's really excited about the addition of Russell gauge. Um. One thing to note is that we're not sure if Chris Godwin is going to be there for the very start of the season, hopefully but not necessarily. And so as Antoine Winfield was talking, he thinks Russell Gaves would be awesome in the slot. We already have an awesome slot receiver and Chris Godwin, but he may not be there at the beginning. And then when he is there,

you really make him very interchangeable. And as you can see here on this graphic right here, Um, this this is showing what guys, how these guys were targeted on third downs last year, and obviously Russell was in Atlanta. You look at these numbers really tell a story of different types of receivers and targets. Look at Mike Evans, very very successful when we throwed him in third down, but his target rate is lower than the other guys.

And if you look at Chris Godwin, who has has the same number catches but a lot fewer yards, but look at how much of that is after the catch, and you can you can see that in your mind. You can see Chris Godden catching that real quick slant and making ten more yards and getting the first down his target rate. Now if he's not there, to look at Russell Gates, he was very good on third down

and very highly used by the Falcons last year. He had a little more YAK than Mike, so he might be able to do the same sort of things that Godwin did. But I think just just paints a picture on how these guys are used on third down. Yeah, that's gonna be incredible. And another guy that we're gonna be interested to see how he's used is our new first pick. I keep wanting to say first round pick,

but it's not quite right close enough. Logan Hall, and you talked about Vita Villas here, and this is definitely a guy whose opinion on Logan Hall, I was excited to hear. Yeah, Vita thinks he said he's very I can already tell he's very athletic, he thinks he's going to do big things, and obviously those two guys will probably and Golden Locals will be your three primary guys

on that down line, in that interior line. Um, what Vita was saying about him is that he's just he's very active and very athletic, and obviously the Buccaneers are hoping that he adds a certain number of sacks and pressure from the interior. The interesting thing, though, is I think you maybe might have to temper your expectations just a teeny little bit. He could have a very nice rooky season, but he won't necessarily have like the six

sacks that in Dominquensue at Lessure. Hopefully he will. But if you look at some of the most notable defensive tackled interior lineman rookies that the Buccaneers have had, I put Santana Dotson on there because he holds the Buck's record, uh for Sax's rookie ridiculous. He was like a fifth round pick. The rest of those guys were all notable first round picks by the Buccaneers, all defensive tackles. Marcus Jones eventually switched in, but he was a defensive tackle

upon being drafted. I mean, look at the Moren SAPs Hall of Famer. We love Vita Via Gerald McCoy went to six Pro Bowls, but their sack toles as rookies weren't really that enormous, right, Sometimes it takes a little while to get into it. Hopefully Logan Hall falls somewhere in between Sap and the rest in Santana Dotson. But what we'll have to wait and see. Yeah, that's going

to be interesting for sure. And then I know that since Coach Bowls has taken over, now we do still have Byron left which is the offensive coordinator, so consistency there. But when Bruce arians was so known for his no risk a no biscuit and everybody's wondered, how how could Todd Bowles taking over maybe change what this offense could look like in the team overall. So with a few people at the podium now this week, do you feel like you've gotten any kind of sense on what that

could mean and what they're looking at. I think there's a certain bit of angst out there that with Todd Bowles taking over, even with Byron left wid still being your play caller, that he's going to force the team to be a run first offense, and and and he's just gonna try to pound it as much as possible. And I just don't think that that's something they have to worry about. As Todd Bowle said very straightforwardly on Tuesday, he's gonna do one offense what it takes to win.

So if that means Tom Brady throwing the ball fifty five times in a game, if that's what's working and that's what the game plan says, we're gonna do that. If we run, if we're running well, and you run thirty times and you win, he's going to do that. But as cam Brad pointed out a little bit later, there are a couple opponents that the Buccaneers have had trouble with the last few years, the Rams and the Saints. It's no secrets. Of the ten losses the Bucks have

had the last two years, seven of them. Again, then against those two teams, it's very unfortunate ones in our division, and one just seems to be a team we always have every single year, and and you know they're probably in each other's past in terms of trying to get the Super Bowl. Uh As Cam Brady was pointing out against some teams he thinks the Buckners really do need to try to establish the run and successfully do so.

And that's the Saints and the Rams, because we simply haven't run the ball very well against those teams in and so in that case, the Bucks might need to do that. And the point is not just to get the running game going, but that the making them fear the running game opens up options for your pass right, And I just threw this up here. Now, this is

Leonard Fournett's runs last year, all of them is. He had about carries overall, and it shows you what fronts, how often they had an extra man in the box that's stacked at the bottom, how often it was just seven people, and how often it was six or fewer. Now, look, Leonard Fournette clearly did better against the lighter fronts, and that's great for him, right, But the few, the fall small number of snaps against stack fronts tells you that

teams were not fearing our running game. Obviously, it's harder to run against stack fronts, but if you can force them into those, you can do play action and so on and really do more things in the passing games. So obviously the Buckners would like Leonard to still have success against the lighter boxes this year, but they probably like to see more stack boxes overall. Okay, well we're going to take a couple of our Facebook questions now.

If you have one of those, you can head on over to the Buccaneers Facebook page and underneath our live video you can leave your question there. And of course I bet you can guess, uh, yes, there it is. The TJ basically just sort of yelled Gronk's name at us multiple times, and you know, ask her, is there is there any news on his returns? At least there's some bit of I don't know if i'd call it news that activity activity that was in town and he

and Rod got together and they were just right over there. Yeah, uh, Tom was taken some hacks And which am I the only person that noticed? Yes? Why it was? I didn't feel like people were talking about this, and I was like, wait a minute, what could he just really? Throwing right handed and swinging left handed is the absolute perfect combination for a baseball player, because you can play any don't say this, or he's just gonna randomly, all of a

sudden go play baseball, golf, yeah, just everything else. Why not He's conquered in the whole rest of the world. Well, Michael Jordan won three more championships after he went played baseball. You know, Brady open don't uh yeah, I mean you you want to be right hand throw left and swinger

and baseball. It's advantageable times. There you go. Of course, Tom Brady, of course, why would he not have advantage on Hopefully after that little session with with Gronkfield and the flyballs that that Tom's left handedly hitting, they got together and had a little discussion, isn't this fun to play games together? Let's exactly. So. I don't know how much you want to read into that kind of him reading why not. We're just kind of we're all kind

of waiting and hoping. You know. It was funny because I think it was Byron Leftwitch that was at the podium, not this week, but last week and said so when they were asking about Gronk and if you know when he comes back, if he comes back, if he doesn't come back, and he answered if he comes back parton, he says, I really don't want to think about the possibly of gron Hosky not come back. Yeah, so same if you like in the building, there's a general hope

that's going to happen. Yeah, I would agree with that. Al right. So Willie asked, how do our corner and safety positions look? Um, so in terms of I would have guess he means both in terms of depth and just health and starters and all of that stuff. Well, if if he means how they look at O T S, it's really not an easy question to answer because most of your starters aren't there. You know, you know you're not seeing Carlton Davis and Antoine Well, now, I guess

Antoine Winfields been around, but they're not all there. Mike Edwards has been around. Uh, but I think the depth is pretty good at safety. You lost Jordan Whitehead, but you signed Logan Ryan and Kean O'Neil and you still have Mike Edwards and obviously Antoine Winfield. I personally think even though we went to the Pro Bowl last year, Antoine Winfield is on upward trajectory and is going to

get even better this year. Uh. Mike Edwards, you know, might get more snaps and what a ball hockey is, and I think they have very specific roles in mind for Kean O'Neil and Logan Ryan that allow them to do a lot of different things at cornerback. You have your top three back from last year. Hopefully you have better luck in terms of injuries. You know, Carlton Davis, Sean Murphy Bunting both missed pre significant amount of time.

Jamal Dean missed I think two games. So if you can get key those guys in the field more, you're probably feeling pretty good. And then the big question there is whether the fifth round Rickie's I am McCollum was incredibly athletic and fast and big, really fits a great profile for this defense, but it is making a big jump from sam Houston State to the NFL. If he can show enough to be your fourth corner, then you're probably feeling pretty good there. And you know that fourth

corner is going to get some action at some point. Okay, and then we will close out with this. Jose said, do you see Logan Hall being a starter? Yeah? I think he probably will be um at this point. You know, we often get in a surprise weren't asked? Is in Dominican sue coming back? And all along I've been saying I think he's probably up to him. He's trying to decide if he wants to play and how much would

make it worthwhile. But we're in what we're getting pretty close to June now, so unless something happens, I think we have to kind of picture this moving forward without in domic ensue. And in that case, I think Logan Hall is pretty much the obvious three technique starter, Vida b and the Nose and um Will Galston more on the four technique where he really fits perfectly. And I think all three of those guys are gonna get a lot of naps. Your main backup is where Keim Nacho.

He's mostly a backup to Vita Vea. So I think there's room for either somebody to step up or for the Bucks possibly to sign another guy on the defensive line as a reserve to rotate with Logan and and we'll go smendod Yes, I do think Logan will probably be a starter. All right, Well, that's going to do it for us on this edition of Buccaneers Inside a Live presented by Miller Ltte. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you next time.