Mike Evans Impressed With Jacob Parrish
June 13th, 2025
Rookie cornerback Jacob Parrish has a reason to smile.
In only took one underwear football practice with a bunch of short-order cooks, cable TV salesmen and Domino’s managers to see the talent Bucs’ third-round pick Jacob Parrish brought to the table.
Granted, Parrish mostly practiced against dudes who played their final snaps of organized football in rookie minicamp. But Joe could see he was a superior player.
The past underwear football practices, including this week’s minicamp, Parrish showed he belongs and it wouldn’t shock Joe if Parrish is a starter. Yes, a lot can change when the pads come on late next month at training camp.
Joe included thought Parrish might become the starting slot corner. Twice, though, Bucs coach Todd Bowles has scolded those thinking Parrish is locked in at slot. Bowles has strongly suggested Parrish is an outside corner.
Now who would know about corners more than a future Hall of Fame receiver? Yesterday, Mike Evans offered up his two cents on the rookie from Kansas State.
“Parrish is all over the place,” Evans said. “He’s really good.”
Just on Evans’ breakdown alone, could Parrish supplant Jamel Dean or Zyon McCollum?
Benjamin Morrison has been slowed by an unknown health issue. Maybe the Bucs are giving Morrison a break after his hip surgery this offseason?
So could Parrish unseat McCollum or Dean? Joe doesn’t believe so. McCollum started for the first time last year and played really solid ball. That doesn’t seem like a candidate to throw the towel in on.
Joe just assumes when Dean goes down, the Bucs would turn to Morrison. But the way Bowles spoke of Parrish playing outside, maybe Bowles has thoughts of Parrish replacing Dean when Dean goes down with an injury.
And it’s only a matter of time before Dean goes down with an injury.
June 13th, 2025 at 7:25 am
Defense is going to be great this year!
June 13th, 2025 at 7:32 am
Zyon is one of the better corners on the league and he won’t be on the bench. Probably become a starter when Dean inevitably gets hurt.
Question: is it feasible for a corner to go back and forth between slot and outside?
June 13th, 2025 at 7:40 am
I said before Carlton Davis left, we had seen the ceiling for the Defense with Dean and Davis for a long time. The defense would truly not improve until Davis and Dean were not the starters anymore.
Well shortly thereafter I said that, Davis was suddenly gone, and became a Detroit Lion.
Hopefully Parrish can supplant Dean this year, because that’s when the possibility of the D taking the leap forward can happen. We shall see………
GO BUCS
June 13th, 2025 at 7:46 am
Jacob Parrish most likely will not supplant Dean until he is injured again, which unfortunately be after a few games. I’m thinking Benjamin Morrison is going to need a bit longer to catch up to Parrish.
June 13th, 2025 at 8:05 am
I think Jacob Parrish & Zyon MCcollum are the same type of player. It’s just that he doesn’t have the length, but apparently he’s just as fast and as twitchy. I think he’ll be a chess piece like Zyon was the year he was being moved inside and out, but I think now Parrish allows us to move him around by choice should that be the plan for him.
June 13th, 2025 at 9:22 am
I think those two CB’s are going to be really nice additions. It’s always good when one of the best recievers in the game talks about you! There is something about A Walker sounds pretty nice also. Things have been great so far, with a lot of really good rookies drafted or not. I think that the depth on defense is building up nicely. Did the Bucs take a few steps up the ladder? I think so.
June 13th, 2025 at 9:24 am
Agreed, Zyon was making plays later in the season and expect him to get even better . Concerned that Jason has taken another risk on a player that is injury prone – we will see on Morrison ?
June 13th, 2025 at 9:38 am
Zyon was horrible in the second half of the season. Dean will be benched by week 4 so I see Morrison and Parrish having a chance to be starters by week 10
June 13th, 2025 at 9:45 am
“McCollum started for the first time last year and played really solid ball. That doesn’t seem like a candidate to throw the towel in on.“
Disagree. He was constantly turned around, out of position, not making plays on the ball.
They did not draft CBs in 2 and 3 because Zyon was solid. He had his chance. He became a placeholder.
June 13th, 2025 at 9:56 am
How’d he get so many pass breakups if he wasn’t making plays on the ball?
June 13th, 2025 at 10:20 am
You sound stupid zyon was great last year except the game he was injured in and he played ok in that one to
June 13th, 2025 at 10:24 am
We’ve seen in past years that if the Bucs’ run defense is REALLY GOOD, opponents prefer to focus on the pass. Our run defense has been quite good because Todd Bowles views run defense as Job 1. And opponents largely focused on short passing because we often left sizable areas relatively undefended due to us blitzing so much.
The results over the years IMO have been quite predictable: exceptional run defense rankings, but very poor pass defense rankings. Our run defense (starting in 2020 thru 2024) ranked #1, #3, #15, #5, #4) while our pass defense ranked #21, #21, #9, #29, #29. The combination of the two however yielded an overall defense ranked normally ranked in the Top-10 (#8, #5, #13, #7, #16) and yielding about 350-360 total points in the regular season.
I’m convinced now though that Todd really has had a ‘revelation’ and that our 2025 defense will operate differently. Not exactly sure why, but my gut has convinced me that he’ll (1) focus a little less on run defense & a little more on pass defense (and our corresponding rankings will reflect that), (2) use somewhat less blitzing and more 4-man pass rush using NT/DT/DE/OLB as his ‘standard’ package (Vea-Kancey-Hall-Reddick should make a nice combination, although we’ve got several others who could rotate in & do equally as well IMO).
June 13th, 2025 at 12:11 pm
Beeej Says:
“Question: is it feasible for a corner to go back and forth between slot and outside?”
Ronde Barber (who was about the same size, but not nearly as fast as Parrish) made a HOF career out of doing that….
June 13th, 2025 at 12:29 pm
Burned by Emeka so bad he falls down? He got juked out of his uni eh? This guy is flying around, love to hear that, and getting his hands on balls out wide, pick-six stuff, love it. But if he’s guessing… I dunno if Bowles can live with that sort of mistake on national TV.
June 13th, 2025 at 12:47 pm
Dammed if Jason light didn’t have an A plus draft
Wow
June 13th, 2025 at 12:48 pm
I’ve gotten after Bowles for too much cross training and not enough focus on 1 position for guys to dial in their games but a CB imo should be able to handle outside and slot duties. Izien is undrafted and he seems to move around alright.
I’m saying that because we have enough CB depth at the moment that who is in the slot defending should be matchup based.
Parrish is easily the smallest CB, we don’t necessarily want him out wide on Drake London or AJ Brown. If the team we are playing has a big TE essentially playing slot receiver, maybe we want a bigger body in there.
That’s possibly overthinking it, Parrish just seems like a natural slot CB with his size and tenacity.
June 13th, 2025 at 12:53 pm
June 13th, 2025 at 1:48 pm
Maybe he’s going to play a Ronde type role in the future, playing some outside and some inside, depending on the scheme being called and the matchups with the offense.
June 13th, 2025 at 8:26 pm
DR and Joseph Simmons, outstanding comments!
June 13th, 2025 at 8:26 pm
Pick grin too. Outstanding!
June 13th, 2025 at 8:44 pm
That said, I haven’t read much about Morrison yet. I know on school he was quite one ball hawk. It is said that he would likely have been a first rounder sans this hip surgery. Parrish was quite the thief too. Delicious. I need to see and hear more from Morrison. It sure sounds to me that he will be fine by camp. Now we are betting an awfully lot on Godwin and Voss healing. Morrison is just one more. I’ve read right here that Morrison’s hip problems were … Oh yeah … Congenital. Born with it. My only concern there, and I’m no medic, but Booger McFatland had congenital hip problems too. They had to reattach his hamstrings I do believe. I don’t know what they did to Morrison.
June 14th, 2025 at 12:28 am
Zion!? he is nowhere near giving up a starting role… He is still rising. He’ll be a pro-bowler within the next couple years