Bucs-Jaguars Practice Notes
August 26th, 2026
Joe already shared deep details of the Bucs-Jaguars 11-on-11 work to close practice yesterday.
And Joe delivered feedback on the sad state of practice from Josiah Trotter and Baker Mayfield. And Joe shared other practice stats and impressions. But wait, there’s more!
While there was success (video here) in 1-on-1 pass rushing from the Bucs defense, it was messy from the Bucs’ 1-on-1 pass blocking.
The offensive line seemed to lack an edge collectively. Joe noted being particularly disturbed by Graham Barton and Ben Bredeson. And fourth-string left tackle Paul Rubelt, who is getting a ton of first-team Wirfs because of injuries, looks so out of place. Joe believes Rubelt very much blew up the Bucs’ second preseason game and he had a significantly negative impact on practice yesterday overall.
Below are various additional nuggets from the offense’s day:
*Kameron Johnson dropped a punt. That won’t go over well as he tries to stick on the roster.
*Whaddya know, Tristan Wirfs takes his small handful of snaps — the Bucs are being careful with his healing hamstring — and Tampa Bay runs successfully behind Wirfs with Bukcy Irving.
*Baker Mayfield hits Chris Godwin on the next play with a 20-yard out route. Godwin was shoved hard out of bounds right at Joe. Thankfully, Joe still has the lateral quickness of Bobby Rainey.
*Bauer Sharp is a first-team tight end today and didn’t embarrass himself. He has a 12-yard catch in this session.
*All the “fights” Tuesday — and they were all minor compared to what the Bucs experienced with the Jets two weeks ago — were between the Bucs defense and the Jags offense.
*A dumpoff pass to Kenny Gainwell goes for no gain.
*Ted Hurst is special. He looked six inches shorter making the first defender miss on a receiver screen. Short gain but Hurst got the most out of it.
*Nothing special out of the Bucs’ run game today.
*Sean Tucker catches a nice short throw from Jalon Daniels.
*Joe hears the fourth loud, exteded cheer of the day from Jaguars fans on the field where the Jaguars offensive is taking on the Bucs defense.
*Devin Culp with a drop.
*In red zone work, Baker Mayfield hits Payne Durham about the five-yard line. He fumbles but it’s ruled incomplete after the whistle. Joe was right at the five-yard line and sure looked like a catch and fumble.
*Rubalt allows very easily. This Rubalt is very easy to pile on.
*Joe wrote about the Ted Hurst fade catch here but it’s worth noting how damn talented Hurst is with the ball in the air. Todd Bowles was right.
*Incomplete to Tez Johnson. Joe’s not a big fan of Tez in the red zone.
*Sweet TD run by Tucker showcasing his shiftiness and power.
*Tristan Wirfs returns for a few snaps and, no surprise, it’s 30 yards down the seam for Hurst from Mayfield.
*Chris Godwin is hit going up for a pass, ball is tipped and it’s picked. Joe’s just happy Godwin isn’t hurt.
*Hurst for a 20-yard catch.
*Sweet sidearm Mayfield throw to Bucky Irving for a five-yard gain.
*Dead play. Play blown after like 5 seconds. Nobody open.
*Hurst runs a sweep. Fun! Very different look than when Sterling Shepard got the call.
*Hurst lays out on a 20+ yard ball to right side. Incomplete.
*A Mayfield completion to Tez Johson is a sack in the real world.
*Bredeson gets mauled on a stunt by Josh Hines-Allen.
*Mayfield short to Sharp.
*DROP! Bad one by Gainwell.
*Nice 15-yarder to Godwin down the seam. Get him off the field! Godwin is in “mint” condition.
*Mayfield with a throwaway followed by an old school slant to Godwin.
*Joe enjoyed chatting at practice with former Bucs rockstar general manager Mark Dominik and the guy who Todd Bowles replaced in 2019, former Bucs defensive coordinator Mark Duffner. Man, Duffner has stories to tell from The Lost Decade.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:02 am
Cool!
No injuries please
August 26th, 2026 at 11:05 am
Doesn’t sound as bad as everyone was saying. Oh well, means little at this point. Onward and Forward.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:08 am
Better day today, good to see. Since the Bucs missed the playoffs last season due to poor play down the stretch, bad practices get magnified. Thats sports for you.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:09 am
Hey Joe!!! Where are your priorities? “Godwin was shoved hard out of bounds right at Joe. Thankfully, Joe still has the lateral quickness of Bobby Rainey”
DUDE, you are supposed to catch Godwin, cushion the blow, and protect him from injury. If a baby fell out of a window 30 stories up, do you use your lateral quickness and get out of the way?
August 26th, 2026 at 11:16 am
Hopefully a better day today. I am not surprised at the secondary, I have been expecting it actually. I think unless they get a real cb this is what the season is going to be. Offenses will use short quick passes to negate the rush and expose the weak secondary . The offense may take some time to come together.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:32 am
@Joe I live in Jax let’s go grab a drink and talk Bucs
August 26th, 2026 at 11:33 am
Is this Oline weaker than anticipated or does Wirf’s abscence make that much of a negative impact.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:34 am
@Joe, surprised you were allowed to pen “ Hurst on a sweep”. Usually that falls under “ I can’t talk about by Bucs protocol”.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:36 am
@Joe, what is Ottons injury? If you said, sorry I missed it. And will he be ready week 1? I’ve noticed both Bauer and Payne have been taking 1St team reps and also playing 12 personnel together.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:39 am
Joe … ‘Man, Duffner has stories to tell from The Lost Decade.’
Remember him well. Sure would like to hear some of those stories sometime.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:39 am
Sounds like Bauer Sharp is a solid draft pick…..that is a real bonus…..
This is shaping up to be one of our best drafts……
August 26th, 2026 at 11:40 am
YES! ‘Cause that sh*t would kill you and the baby.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:40 am
Concerning about the oline. Wirfs out all TC. Luke getting whipped on the regular, and we’ve heard nothing positive about Barton, Bredeson or Mauch.
Barton doesn’t seem to be progressing at all from his rookie year.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:52 am
Love the throwback Bobby Rainey reference
August 26th, 2026 at 11:55 am
Goedeke had like 450 snaps last year without allowing a single pressure. I’m pretty sure he will recover as will everybody else. Rubelt is throwing off the continuity, for sure.
August 26th, 2026 at 11:57 am
I’d take Sharp. Culp and Durham can’t play, and I’ve know it for a real long time.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:03 pm
Just to clarify… these are additional notes from yesterday and not notes from today.
Joe believes there was clarity by using the word “Tuesday.” Today was a worthless underwear football session in Jacksonville, one that was abbreviated. –Joe
August 26th, 2026 at 12:07 pm
@ Donny’s Shrinking Frontal Lobes Says: “YES! ‘Cause that sh*t would kill you and the baby.”
No joke. “30-STORIES.” I’m assuming he meant more like 30-FEET. Since, 30-stories would be a lot more like 300-450 FEET LoL. Yeah, nobody is trying to do that. A total lost cause, and you are 💯 correct… Would only kill yourself.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:10 pm
Otton could honestly be a really HUGE help to this team. He could SAVE ‘EM. Hell, I almost forgot about him. Haven’t heard a peep.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:18 pm
You don’t usually use a first round pick on a center, especially if the player isn’t a center. Marpet was an average center for a year before moving to guard. Barton has been an average center for two years now. He’s no Jensen, or Kelcey, but shouldn’t he be? He was taken in the first round, that’s way to high for an average center. Maybe he’d be better served moving to LG like Marpet?
August 26th, 2026 at 12:23 pm
Stpetematt Says:
August 26th, 2026 at 11:55 am
Goedeke had like 450 snaps last year without allowing a single pressure. I’m pretty sure he will recover as will everybody else. Rubelt is throwing off the continuity, for sure.
Dude you are so full of sh1t. No tackle in the league went the whole season without allowing a single pressure. Stop making up facts to support your ridiculous level of copium.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:27 pm
I THINK HAINSEY WAS A BETTER CRNTER ST THIS POINT AND COEN GRABB3D HIM. BARTON HAS TO PROVE HIS WORTH.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:33 pm
Paul Rubelt is the 6 foot 10 inches tall German giant rookie. Perhaps too tall for pro NFL players. Suppose they have him in there to safeguard the backup OT’s (as well as Tristan)?
August 26th, 2026 at 12:37 pm
Jalen Daniels got injured at the Gatorade,station just like in college.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:40 pm
Have Rubelt try out for the German national Basketball team in Orlando.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:57 pm
We’re talking about practice. Practice? Not a game. Practice?
Allen Iverson was correct in his comments that the real games are what matters.
Unfortunately that’s not Bowles time to shine. He’s only good in preseason.
Once it becomes real, he wilts under the pressure. He shouldn’t be the HC or DC.
But he’s both. Thanks Licht and Glazer clan.
August 26th, 2026 at 12:59 pm
hurst might one of those fantasy sleepers
August 26th, 2026 at 1:10 pm
Been saying since the draft, Bredenson should be our starting Center and Barton should be our starting LG…
not giving up on Barton but i also dont think the staff is putting him in the best position to be successful
GO BUCS!!!!
August 26th, 2026 at 1:10 pm
HeartyDickerson … ‘Barton doesn’t seem to be progressing at all from his rookie year.’
Barton had a very nice rookie season in 2024, but seemed to struggle all too often last season. He’s certainly durable though (16 games & 1065 snaps as a rookie, then 17 games & 1134 snaps last season.
I think a big part of the reason for his ‘struggles’ last season was the injuries to both Mauch & Bredeson. But also I wonder about our OLine coach, Kevin Carberry. He’s excellent from everything I’ve read, but I noticed that in 2024 (his first year here) he was ONLY the Offensive Line Coach. But then last season they tacked on ANOTHER task; he was ALSO the Run Game Coordinator.
MAYBE Todd’s getting too fancy with all this dual-hatting people? We now have FOUR coaches on our staff who are dual-hatted. After our experience with Todd being dual-hatted, I’m sure that Dr Phil famous bottom-line question might apply … ‘And how’s that working out for you?’
August 26th, 2026 at 1:33 pm
813bucboi … ‘Been saying since the draft, Bredenson should be our starting Center and Barton should be our starting LG…’
After last season I agree with you. Bredeson played the first 3 games at Center last season while Wirfs was injured, and I thought he did extremely well (we went 3-0 for starters), then shifted back to LG when Wirfs came back in. Barton also impressed me when he started out at LT (his college position) and I thought he did extremely well.
I’m wondering what Licht will do with Mauch after this season. The problem becomes ‘How many mouths can you afford to feed?’. With Mayfield wanting north of $50 mil per year, and Vea already on tap to get $30 mil next year, it could be problematic trying to keep most of the 20-Plus free agents we’ll have next year.
August 26th, 2026 at 2:18 pm
I had to make it 30 stories to give Joe adequate time to move, and I figured 30 stories is doable with the drag coefficient factoring in a baby blanket. A baby falling always has a baby blanket.
August 26th, 2026 at 2:29 pm
Excellent write-up Joe, thank you.
August 26th, 2026 at 3:55 pm
How about today’s practice …
I thought we live in the age of instant info.
Maybe it is…just not here.
It’s only here if/when Joe finds it worthy of sharing. –Joe
August 26th, 2026 at 4:08 pm
OK, I learned that Joshua Trotter and Ayden Garnes both picked off Trevor Lawrence!!!! 7-on-7 work with no touching and no pass rush. Brilliant! –Joe I also learned that the teams were not in full pads and did a lot of work apart from each other.
August 26th, 2026 at 4:10 pm
@Melvin – Otton has been injured for 3 weeks now. That’s why you haven’t heard a peep. Keep up man. Since you seem to be a TE guru. Sharpe is good but you seem overly high on him vs the rest of the room. He has a bad game drop, a bad game fumble, and ran a wrong route yesterday.but agin, I agree he is talented and has also made alot of good plays. “ Durham and Culp can’t play” is an ignorant comment. Grizzard failed them both”
August 26th, 2026 at 4:20 pm
I also learned that today during 7 on 7s, at practice today, BM6 threw TDs to Ted Hurst, Tez Johnson, and Kenny Gainwell. Sounds like BM6 had a better day today.
August 26th, 2026 at 4:25 pm
Joe…IMO any info is better than no info. Although the teams weren’t in full pads/full contact they still were practicing against one another. At least for a part of the day.
August 26th, 2026 at 5:21 pm
The problem with keeping 3 Qbs is that another position has one less player. They are not going to release Browning. It’s probably going to be either Tucker or Josh Williams. If I had to guess I think Tucker maybe the m it St shocking cut. He or Josh won’t make it through waivers. Is Tucker going to the Raiders?
August 26th, 2026 at 5:48 pm
It just takes FOREVER for September to arrive…..
August 26th, 2026 at 11:13 pm
infomeplease Says:
August 26th, 2026 at 4:20 pm
I also learned that today during 7 on 7s, at practice today, BM6 threw TDs to Ted Hurst, Tez Johnson, and Kenny Gainwell. Sounds like BM6 had a better day today.
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Make it two hand touch with no pass rush and Baker is a Pro Bowler!