Ohio State DT Kayden McDonald.

Joe has been borderline obsessed with the possiblity the Bucs may throw a curveball at fans and rather than draft an inside linebacker or edge rusher, instead draft a defensive tackle.

Joe has detailed why this isn’t a crazy thought before, but let’s review:

* Calijah Kancey, though very, very talented, cannot stay on the field. So far in his three years with the Bucs, he has played in just 56 percent of Bucs games due to some injury or another. If the Bucs were fed up with Jamel Dean missing so much time, Dean was an iron horse compared to Kancey.

* While the Bucs signed free agent A’Shawn Robinson, he’s already slotted for the vacancy left by the departure of Logan Hall.

* Vita Vea is getting long in the tooth. He’s 31 and entering a contract year. How much gas is left in his tank?

So Joe has been fixated on Ohio State defensive tackle Kayden McDonald, a true bully in the trenches.

And from the looks of what Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht has added to the defense this offseason, he, like Joe, saw a soft defense that needs to be toughened up.

One way to do that is go get brawlers on the line, which Robinson is and it seems so too is McDonald as CBS analyst Emory Hunt, the czar of the playbook, detailed in his “Football Gameplan 2026 Draft Guide.”

* Tremendous ability at the point of attack, doing a lot of things extremely well. Has the requisite functional strength to handle, and sometimes split, double teams.

* Shows terrific awareness to not chase ghosts in the run game, able to quickly diagnose where the ball is going.

* Good technique to effectively handle double team blocks well and how to attack down blocks on a consistent basis. Major reason why is due to his first step explosiveness off the ball.

Hunt also believes McDonald has plenty of room to improve chasing quarterbacks.

Still building to become much more of a threat as a pass rusher and that’ll be an area where he can continue to grow his game as a pro.

Here’s another reason why Joe has no problem if the Bucs draft McDonald: Notice how really good teams often have very deep defensive lines? One reason the Eagles were so good was they had quality starters and quality depth on the defensive line.

One reason why Houston has such a physical defense is the Texans may have the orneriest, deepest defensive line in the game.

Why not copy success? You can’t tell Joe that having a beastly, nasty, deep defensive line won’t pay off in December and January.

Ohio State DT Kayden McDonald is an absolute load for any OL to deal with

I'm always on the lookout for a 3-down DT that can play next to Chris… unfortunately, McDonald is probably worth a Day 1 pick and shouldn't be there at 40 pic.twitter.com/QOH7dvxnLz

— Ron Kopp Jr (@RonOnChiefs) February 15, 2026