BSPN: Jacob Parrish Will Have An Impact
May 13th, 2025
Bucs rookie CB Jacob Parrish.
Look, Joe’s not going to go nuts here after watching two days of underwear football practice with the rookies, the UDFAs and the tryout slugs.
Drafted players should stick out against guys who likely to be tech support specialists at Best Buy, assistant managers at Chili’s, grade students and short order cooks by September.
Let’s see what these guys do when the pads come on in August playing against grown-arse men and NFL vets.
But for now, Joe thinks the Bucs may have something in Jacob Parrish, the cornerback from Kansas State picked in the third round. Even Bucs coach Todd Bowles was crowing about him on Friday and dared to use the word “starter” in the same sentence as Parrish’s name. Whoa.
In the two practices Joe witnessed, Parrish sure looked like he belonged.
Field Yates over at BSPN decided to sift through all the non-first round draft picks to see which ones ought to have a impact.
Yates believes Parrish will be one of those rookies.
10. Jacob Parrish, CB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (No. 84)
Tampa Bay doubled-dipped at cornerback on Day 2, selecting Parrish in Round 3 after taking Benjamin Morrison in Round 2. Parrish finished 64th on my final board, and I believe he can translate his versatile game to the pro level. He played 395 snaps as an outside corner and 201 snaps as a slot corner in 2024. Parrish has premier speed and capable ball skills, and he is a very skilled blitzer. That should shine on a Todd Bowles-coached team.
Well, Parrish showed that ballhawk ability this weekend, the kind Bowles has begged for.
Now does Joe think Parrish will drive Baker Mayfield nuts in training camp? Not really. The quarterbacks the Bucs had in rookie minicamp were, well, less than precise. They made the receivers work for completions.
Joe is confident the picks that Parrish had came, in part, because several passes were off the mark. Is Mayfield going to be that wild? Unlikely.
Aside from rookie receivers Emeka Egbuka or Tez Johnson, has anyone outside their colleges and families heard of the other receivers in rookie minicamp? Parrish will be facing Mike Evans, Jalen McMillan, a veteran like Sterling Shepard and hopefully Chris Godwin.
That’s more than a couple of steps up from what Parrish was defending on Friday and Saturday.
But as Joe typed, Parrish sure looks ready.
May 13th, 2025 at 12:29 am
“Starter” could be generous, but I expect a 2 out of 3 rotation among Parish/Izien/Smith on any given down at the nickel and SS spots.
There is a definite lack of size in that group though, and it only gets worse adding Winfield into the mix.
May 13th, 2025 at 12:38 am
Hopefully the most improved group we have. Bowles insists the competition is going to be fierce. He also had an epiphany of some sort. If we have enough depth to keep pressure on the QB with 4 and not have to blitz so much, guys like Parrish being able to press bump and run will be valuable. Maybe get some big picks. Antoine and Tykee and McCollum and Izien and our 2 new corners are gonna pressure Dean for playing time. Parrish is gonna have a good year and if the DBs get a little help from our DL we may just turn this thing around. We should barring a bunch of injuries. Fingers crossed.
May 13th, 2025 at 12:49 am
Hey, as long as the guy can occupy a lot of deep zone and come up to a receiver already running after catch for a first down, he’s a fit in Todd’s schemes.
May 13th, 2025 at 1:19 am
I don’t know he had several pick sixes. I can’t remember the last time. I read that sentence on Joebucsfan.com can’t wait for training camp
May 13th, 2025 at 1:52 am
If a corner actually finishes his interceptions I’m ALWAYS going to be excited. Looked really smooth catching the ball in the video the Bucs posted. A ball plenty of our recent corners would have dropped.
May 13th, 2025 at 3:59 am
Could end up being the biggest contributor this season from all the rookies. Yes starter role could be in the cards.
May 13th, 2025 at 5:28 am
Kenton
Largely agree with your post except for…”He also had an epiphany of some sort.”
Not really. Todd blitzed less than 10% of the time against the Chiefs in the Bucs SB win. That’s for two reasons. Mahomes had shown great success against the blitz and Todd had JPP, Suh, and great LB’s. He didn’t HAVE to blitz so much.
You play the cards you’re dealt. In the SB year Todd had a Royal flush. In the rebuild since he’s been trying to get by playing with a couple of deuces.
May 13th, 2025 at 5:44 am
Kenton … ‘If we have enough depth to keep pressure on the QB with 4 and not have to blitz so much, guys like Parrish being able to press bump and run will be valuable.’
‘Pressure with 4’ is the key IMO. Unfortunately, Vea is probably only on the field for half (or less) of the opponent’s pass plays, depending upon who we’re playing. Bucs can exert some decent pressure if we’re pass rushing Vea, Kancey, Hall & Diaby (letting our other OLB fall back into coverage).
But there-in lies our problem also. Last season Vea stayed reasonably healthy & got 705 def snaps (63%); Kancey only got 541 def snaps (48%); Hall only got 539 def snaps (48%). That kinda means that for half the def snaps our OTHER NT/DT/DEs are on the field (Gaines with 395 def snaps (35%); Gholston with 202 def snaps (18%); Brewer with 160 def snaps (14%); Greene with 58 def snaps (5%); Stille with 14 def snaps (14%).
Something strange though seems like it was happening last year. Add up all the def snaps from our NTs, DTs & DEs and you only get 2,635 total. Yet our opponents ran 1065 def plays last season (that were actually 1,117 def plays when you count plays our defenders were on the field for a play that was conducted but negated because of an accepted penalty … all those apparently count in the def snaps each player gets).
So if 3 DLinemen were on the field for each of those 1,117 def plays, that’d total to 3,351 def snaps. But ALL of our NTs, DTs & DEs only got 2,635 def snaps total, indicating that we only used 2 of our ‘big guys’ out there on about 3/4ths of our def plays. And apparently those often end up being our backups.
Seems logical to assume that either Vea (705 def snaps) and Gaines (395 def snaps) … 1,100 total between them … were out there on virtually every def play. Not so though with our other
DTs & DEs (the rest of them only totalled 1,514 def snaps instead of 2,234 snaps for 2 DLinemen). Looks to me like we’ve been using a LOT of 2 DLine/2 OLB lineups instead of the 3 DLine/2 OLB that you’d expect in a 3-4 defense.
Bucs don’t have enough big bodies in our Defensive Front; we’re ‘light’ as he11, largely because we’ve chosen speed & quickness over ‘beef’ AND we lack quality DT/DE depth. When Vea, Kancey & Hall aren’t out there (half the time?), our interior pass rush looks to be nearly non-existent. The 3 of them had a total of 20 sacks & 47 pressures last season, while the rest of our NT/DT/DEs had 4 sacks & 14 pressures total. And we already know that our OLB group didn’t exactly shine last year.
HOPEFULLY this year is different. Sure do wish though that we’d drafted a monster DT (like Suh) to take up some of the ‘slack’ and improve our interior pass rush when Vea’s not out there.
May 13th, 2025 at 6:37 am
stpetebucsfan and Defense Rules, spent yesterday on my hands and knees rolling out bermuda sod helping out my 77 year old buddy and while I’m sure he was dead asleep by 8 I had to go to a grandson’s birthday party. Then getting home decided that JBF needed my comments before heading to bed. Both of you guys had interesting comments and DR you come up with analysis that make me say Ahha every time. Wonder if this SMU kid can help our interior DL? Anyhow, anything I posted yesterday wasn’t well thought out. Rereading Joes story what I should have said was “I really like this Parrish kid. Alot!” Damn I’m sore!
May 13th, 2025 at 6:46 am
Kenton … Old-timers like StPete & I have figured out the best way to re-sod: hire someone to do it who knows what they’re doing. Green side up supposedly works best.