Zyon McCollum Didn’t Shame Himself
June 24th, 2025
Solid first-year starting.
Maybe Joe is weird, but when Joe sees a player do something very good, to Joe, that’s a foundation on which to build.
Others believe it’s worthy of throwing a guy overboard.
Recently when Joe has typed about Bucs starting cornerback Zyon McCollum, quite a few commenters came at Joe trying to tell Joe how McCollum is such a sieve and cannot cover.
Huh?
Joe saw a player in his first full season as a starter play solid ball. Joe wouldn’t expect any guy taking over a job to play like Hall of Fame corner Mel Blount in his prime 40-plus years ago; that’s outrageous.
But Joe may be in the minority.
Joe saw a guy in McCollum that last year in training camp — yes, Joe knows it was practice — covered Mike Evans damn well every day.
If a guy can hang with Evans, how can he be bad?
Then, after the season, McCollum ranked third in the NFL in pass breakups. Joe doesn’t know how someone who (allegedly) can’t cover somehow finishes third in the league in breakups?
Just on face value alone, those two points simply don’t square.
June 24th, 2025 at 10:36 am
McCollum is solid. I expect him to be better this year. Did he miss any games in 2024?
June 24th, 2025 at 11:11 am
some strange obsession playing defense for a marginal player who wont be a buc for long. defend his honor buc fans!! all hail zyon!!
June 24th, 2025 at 11:12 am
Gave up to many big plays, didn’t make enough big plays himself. The talent is there. Maybe having a healthy Winfield, and better play from Smith compared to Whitehead, it’ll help Zyon out. Contract year, hope he puts it all together.
June 24th, 2025 at 2:33 pm
Got beat deep a lot. Not on the bandwagon and have said before it is very hard to find a silver lining in one of the NFL’s worst pass defenses the last several years. Maybe with a push from the rookie CB’s we will see a new and improved Zyon in 2025.
June 24th, 2025 at 2:47 pm
@Hodad I think the same, defensively I think we’re good (just good) while healthy and hopefully the rookie CBs can elevate Zyon enough so we can offload Jamel ‘play off 15 yards’ Dean and pocket some money.
I feel like with our pass D, the lack of depth has been far and away the biggest issue.
June 24th, 2025 at 3:00 pm
i think zyon played great last season as a full time starter….
lack of pressure from the front4 made things worse…
so what happens if zyon finished the season top 3 in INTs with a Pro Bowl lol…
let him walk and draft another CB to replace him since morrison will replace dean or make him the highest paid CB in the nfl…
we still have the RT and others to resign
GO BUCS!!!!!
June 24th, 2025 at 3:08 pm
Obviously with a perfect 10 RAS the guy can play.
Can he make the right decisions over and over is the question.
June 24th, 2025 at 3:20 pm
Career high in tackles, 3rd most PBUs in all the NFL, and easily our steadiest player in a room ravaged by injuries.
I dont want to hear anything about Morrison taking anybodys’ job just yet. That surgically repaired hip has not had any football contact in months he’s not too far off from being talked about the way some fans talk about Dean.
June 24th, 2025 at 4:28 pm
Guess I don’t understand why we’re even having this discussion. Zion played in (and started) all 17 games. He was targeted more than anyone else (108 times) because he was on the field more than anyone else in our Secondary (1056 def snaps), and only gave up 62 completions for a team-best of 57.4%. He did give up 4 TDs, but he also made 2 INTs (tied with Tykee Smith for most on the team). And oh ya, in the process he had 17 Passes Defensed to rank 3rd in the NFL.
It wasn’t all peaches & cream though. Zion also surrendered 839 yards in 2024, for an average of 13.5 YPC. Turned out that his Average Depth of Target was 12.0 yards, that the Total Air Yards on Completions was 502 yards, and that he surrendered 337 Yards After the Catch (roughly the same as Winfield, Merriweather & Funderburk). I suspect that one of his goals will be to reduce those numbers this year.
June 24th, 2025 at 7:09 pm
McCollum is a pretty darned good corner. Sure, he gets burned occasionally just like every single corner who ever played the game. He’s better than Dean and Carlton Davis because he’s just as good as they are at covering guys, he tackles very well and, most important, he doesn’t spend a quarter of the season injured or seem to miss or get hurt every playoff game.
June 24th, 2025 at 7:13 pm
Being targeted he had an avg of 87 passer rating against which is really solid now adays.
June 24th, 2025 at 9:46 pm
Imagine how good he’d be with some proper coaching as to line of scrimmage depth and zone assignments .
June 25th, 2025 at 6:08 am
Only people who do not know football judge a corner solely on the INTs they get or don’t get. Watch the games.
Passes defended is a stat that is subjective as well. Passer rating might as well be calculus to this fan. Passes broken up tells me he is around the ball and affects plays. Pass breakups are not subjective. Add to that that everyone else missed time and he was surrounded by backups? Pretty amazing to me.
Go Bucs!