Robert Ayers Returns … To The Bucs’ Coaching Staff
July 21st, 2025
One of the more colorful personalities to put on a Bucs uniform has returned to help coach up Tampa Bay edge rushers, among others.
Robert Ayers, now the University of Tennessee assistant defensive line coach, has been named one of the Bucs’ summer coaching interns/fellows.
Ayers, 39, was signed by the Bucs in 2016 as a free agent following a nine-sack season with the Giants. He was supposed to be the “bridge” starter until rookie second-round pick Noah Spence was ready to be a force.
Well, Ayers talked a great game, loved to use the word “beasting” and finished an injury-plagued 2016 with 6 1/2-sacks in 10 starts. He came back for 2017 at 32 years old and was toast. He finished that season with 2 sacks in 12 games and his playing career was done.
Joe likes that Ayers is an intense guy. Joe suspects his coaching style is slightly similar to what was seen in the stunning Simeon Rice-YaYa Diaby video published this weekend.
July 21st, 2025 at 11:59 am
After watching Simeon Rice work with YaYa I would have thought he would have been a great coach for the ends. You feel me? And YaYa should be watching every game film he can on Simeon.
July 21st, 2025 at 12:04 pm
Ayers has been in Tennessee the last few years with Josh Heupel, this is a solidnaddition. Ayers worked with Omar Norman-Lott, D’onte Thorton, & James Pearce Jr who all got drafted this past draft.
July 21st, 2025 at 12:06 pm
The funniest part of the Simeon video is when he said to YaYa, hey call me anytime, I can show you the real sh#t, sh#t, you know what I mean? I know what he means, YaYa make the call!
July 21st, 2025 at 12:08 pm
Ayer’s coming in to bring some fire
July 21st, 2025 at 12:23 pm
He sure played well in 2016, 6.5 sacks in 10 games gets him to 11 or 12 in a full season. After determining that the DC has not bothered to see that his pass rushers are getting any coaching up, this is a smart move. Jason probably hired him.
July 21st, 2025 at 12:54 pm
Should’ve hired #97 and he needs to be in the HOF
July 21st, 2025 at 1:17 pm
Ahhh, Noah Spence. Another JTS-like project medal that Licht can wear on his chest. This is another reason why seasoned Bucs fans have little unquestioned belief when Licht and Bowles brag about how great Braswell will be for us this year. Not that I/we want Braswell to fail but we are used to the next great pass rusher we have become invisible. It’s happened many times before.
July 21st, 2025 at 2:10 pm
What Rice was teaching makes perfect sense. Use your speed on every play and let the defender react to it. It’s just like the basketball crossover dribble. Your next move is based on how the defender reacts to that first dribble. If he’s slow to react, you speed past him. If he over extends, you cross him up. Lets hope that YaYa shares what he learns with the other edge rushers. Let’s hope he grabs Heck for some after practice practice!! All I could think about during the video was, YaYa’s going yo be a BEAST!!!
July 21st, 2025 at 3:01 pm
attitude & intensity is a plus++
July 21st, 2025 at 3:10 pm
BucsfaninOregon… Spence had a shoulder injury he couldn’t get over. It really wasn’t about his talent… or at least we’ll never really know. JTS just was kind of mediocre… there’s really nothing to blame it on. Braswell… if he has a not so stellar season in 2025, then you might have a point. But he was a rookie last year so we’ll just have to see. Hopefully Ayers can help him.
There aren’t a lot of “recent” edge rusher misses from Licht because he really hasn’t drafted too many that high. Barrett and JPP were amazing off season pickups on very reasonable deals that made the need for drafting a first round edge rusher unnecessary.
JTS is the real miss but somebody still signed him.
Glad we have Reddick instead of him this season.
July 21st, 2025 at 4:17 pm
Our best “Home Grown” Edge Rusher was Micheal Bennett
I still don’t know why Mark Dominick let him walk
July 21st, 2025 at 4:19 pm
“””Dominik””””
July 21st, 2025 at 7:26 pm
Dominik was an imbecile.
And clearly from Joe’s article about Sim teaching YaYa, it becomes clear that there is no coaching up going on. Why would anyone be surprised with Todd’s failure to develop pass rushers? His first priority is to teach them to drop back into empty zones and help keep everything from going over their heads. Because he is the masturmind genius.