Bucs No. 21
May 6th, 2025
Writer frowns at Jason Licht.
It seems like the Bucs addressed major issues in the draft. At least it did to Joe.
But not everyone sees what Joe sees, or Joe doesn’t see what others see.
Take Gennaro Filice of NFL.com, for example. While most draft write-ups Joe has seen gave the Bucs high “Bs,” or in the case of prickly Pete Prisco an “A,” not so with Filice.
Filice believes Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht deserves a “B-” grade. Barely. He appears triggered Licht would draft a receiver at No. 19 and scoffs at Licht’s best-player-available strategy.
The Bucs were ranked as the No. 21 draft class.
GRADE: B-
Mike Evans just posted his 11th straight 1,000-yard season, Chris Godwin signed a $66 million extension in March and Jalen McMillan finished his rookie campaign with seven touchdown catches in the final five weeks of the regular season. Clearly, Tampa Bay didn’t have a need at receiver. But when the Buccaneers came on the clock at No. 19, Jason Licht just couldn’t pass on Emeka Egbuka. “He was super-high on our board,” the Bucs GM said to Rich Eisen. “You know, top-10 on our board, kind of stood out like a sore thumb.” Fair enough. After satisfying his “best player available” desire, Licht spent the next four picks doubling down on two areas of need: cornerback and edge rusher.
Joe read advanced stats on Twitter (sorry, no link) that demonstrated in the four games the Bucs didn’t have Mike Evans or Chris Godwin (nor did they have Jamel Dean in the same 0-4 stretch), the wide receiver stats were downright p!ss poor. Really awful.
Sooner or later Evans, 32 in August, will have Father Time tap on his shoulder. And right now we have no idea when Godwin will return. So that explains Egbuka in a nutshell.
Filice? Joe can’t explain him.
May 6th, 2025 at 10:36 am
Need to add another free agent ILB.
May 6th, 2025 at 10:37 am
Who??
May 6th, 2025 at 10:39 am
He’s like so many sports reporters, all talk and no substance (researc).
Another BS’ er
In truth only about the real evaluators represent around 10% worth listening to.
May 6th, 2025 at 10:41 am
Mike Evans just posted his 11th straight 1,000-yard season, Chris Godwin signed a $66 million extension in March and Jalen McMillan finished his rookie campaign with seven touchdown catches in the final five weeks of the regular season. Clearly, Tampa Bay didn’t have a need at receiver.
And when Mike and Chris were both out injured for four games, we lost all four games, so there’s that.
May 6th, 2025 at 10:48 am
I liked the pick. Who better to teach upcoming WRs than the dynamic duo we have this year (for certain)?
May 6th, 2025 at 10:48 am
These grades are ridiculous anyway. Mean nothing until 3 -4 years later. He sounds butt-hurt because they messed up his mock
May 6th, 2025 at 10:50 am
Why do we keep explaining why we picked a good receiver we took a look and got the guy because no one else was worth it and 2 we are thinking of our future I feel like we are doctors explaining to fat people your gonna die if you don’t change your eating habits and everyone is like why do we need to change our eating habit
May 6th, 2025 at 10:50 am
Elijah Roberts is not an edge rusher.
He’s a 3-4 DE. A bull rusher. He’s not an edge rusher in our defense.
His job is to stop the run and get upfield.
He’s a DE/DT in our defense.
I hope we draft a NT/DT in the 2nd round next year.
And grab another WR in the first round next year.
Triple up boy!
Never forget the Super Bowl.
We had 3 #1 wide receivers.
Mike Evans 1-A
Chris Godwin 1-B
Antonio Brown 1-C
And we had 3 starting corners who could all play as our top corner.
Davis, Dean and SMB.
We need to stick to this template.
Next year?
Round 1: WR
Round 2: NT/DT
Round 3: CB
Round 4: ILB
Round 5: ILB
May 6th, 2025 at 10:57 am
Why do you bother with these idiots?
May 6th, 2025 at 11:00 am
@CrickettBaker
The dynamic duo of Trey Palmer & Sterling Shepard?
May 6th, 2025 at 11:03 am
Not even worth reading this guy’s take.
Talk to me in 10 months when Egbuka is going off.
May 6th, 2025 at 11:42 am
No need to listen to this clown
May 6th, 2025 at 11:48 am
Might as well join beating this dead horse…..Egbuka is huge insurance against Evans or (and) Godwin injury.
Their loss could tank our season….not now
May 6th, 2025 at 12:13 pm
No grandson you need to get a job you slacker
May 6th, 2025 at 12:13 pm
I bet EE will out perform McMillan in 2025, so yes it was a good pick.
May 6th, 2025 at 12:27 pm
I agree with Prisco.
Except I would even give us an A+ grade.
Definitely Top-3 draft class on the NFL, like Prisco had us.
May 6th, 2025 at 12:29 pm
*in the NFL.
These wannabe analysts obviously didn’t watch many Bucs games last year, and especially not the ones where Godwin and Evans were both out.
We had literally no receivers who could even get open when Godwin & Evans were both out.
May 6th, 2025 at 12:32 pm
Sterling Shepard was the only receiver who was pretty solid when Godwin & Evans were both out last year.
We needed more firepower and we got it.
May 6th, 2025 at 12:38 pm
If Baker n all 4 WRs stay healthy, STATS could make it look like ME got old, CG played hurt, Jalen soph slumped, and EE was a wasted pick, just STATs, hopefully we are 13-4 and it wont mattee
May 6th, 2025 at 12:58 pm
Sterling Shepherd dropped some pretty easily caught balls that we really needed him to catch and some of his penalties were just ridiculous, like he was some hothead rookie. Costed Bucs greatly in those moments. If he’s back on the practice squad, that just means we have some firepower.
Wins are the only stats that matter.
May 6th, 2025 at 1:05 pm
CHECK THE RECORD …
When Mike and Godwin both went out with injury the Bucs were 0-4. The concept was solid. I personally liked Matthew Golden, but I’m sure Emeka Egbuka is solid.
May 6th, 2025 at 1:08 pm
Licht is gonna look like a dadgum genius when inevitably a top WR goes down to injury this year.
May 6th, 2025 at 1:16 pm
Bucs finished 10-7 to win the NFC South. Falcons were close until the last couple of games, but then they peed all over themselves in losing their last 2 games. On the season, our offense improved dramatically; our defense did the opposite.
Once the regular season ended, only ONE game counted: our 1st playoff game against Washington. It wasa a home game for us, and we blew it at the very end after tying the game 20-20 with 4:41 to go in the 4th qtr. Our defense let the Commanders march down the field & kick the winning FG with zero time left on the clock.
That scenario WILL happen again, UNLESS our defense improves significantly over what we fielded in that playoff game. And that’s the big question: Has our defense improved enough to win that 1st playoff game? And once we do, hasa it improved enough to win the 2nd playoff game? Then the 3rd? Then the Super Bowl?
May 6th, 2025 at 1:50 pm
“And that’s the big question”
Agree D.R. That’s perhaps the biggest but I also have a question about the offense. IF Baker goes down is the O so loaded that even Trask can lead the Bucs to the playoffs?
I think that depends on when Baker goes down and for how long. It also depends on what Trask can REALLY do. I’m a big Baker fan and so I remain skeptical about ANY replacement for him. In addition Trask’s style is almost totally opposite that of Bakers. Will the O be able to adapt.
Hopefully the vastly improved run game would save the day if necessary.
May 6th, 2025 at 1:54 pm
Spot on, Joey. The draft of EE was for three years from now. If you wait until the last minute, everyone knows your need, and the quality may not be there.
The analysis is who was avail at 19 that would have made a bigger impact immediately?
May 6th, 2025 at 3:06 pm
Said it before, during and after the draft … a 1st round WR might save your season if Godwin is slow to recover and time catches up with Evans. Meanwhile a 1st round corner standing around in Bowles super soft garbage zone defense isn’t going to help you.
Getting a WR, who is probably the safest pick in the draft, who you can pencil in as a #2 WR from day 1, and still has the possibility to become a #1 WR, was an excellent pick based on the Bucs injury history at WR.
May 6th, 2025 at 3:59 pm
You’re not that guy. Not yesterday not today not ever.
May 6th, 2025 at 5:14 pm
The dynamic duo of Sterling Shepard and Trey Palmer?? I’d have Jarret ahead of both of them on the depth chart.
May 6th, 2025 at 5:45 pm
If the Bucs had Godwin in the playoffs, the offense would have scored more than 20 points, and a FG would not have been enough to beat us. With EE, that’s just insurance so we still have enough viable weapons to beat most teams if someone is injured. I believe Grizz will make better use of our TEs and RBs in the passing game. Mayfield knows who he can depend on by now, and I’m confident the pass defense will make a drastic improvement. If it doesn’t, the DC has to be fired, and I’m certain the HC will be forced to agree.
May 6th, 2025 at 6:22 pm
“Ancient Says:
May 6th, 2025 at 10:37 am
Who??”
Feliz Navidad! That’s who… NFL.com’s new draft master and singer of Spanish Christmas Carols.
Old saying and it applies to the NFL draft as well. “Opinions are like A-holes, everybody’s got one.”
May 6th, 2025 at 6:55 pm
I truly find it hard to believe that 2/3 of the NFL outdrafted us. A lot of these teams had 10 and 11 pics. Only one other team only had six pics and then a lone team had five. So we did pretty well for having one of the fewest picks in the draft.
I think we definitely got value but we’ll see what happens when the season starts.
May 6th, 2025 at 8:14 pm
StPete … ‘In addition Trask’s style is almost totally opposite that of Bakers. Will the O be able to adapt.’
One thing that’s impressed me about Todd Bowles since he took over as HC is that he’s pushed for an offense that’s REALLY versatile. It can run the ball. It can pass the ball, short OR deep. But what I really like the most is that we’ve got an OLine that can both run-block AND pass protect. Will it be able to adapt to Kyle Trask if the need arises? He11 ya.
It’s because of those capabilities that I believe Kyle Trask would do fine if Baker went out, even though Kyle lacks experience. Would he throw 71% completions like Baker? Probably not, but he’d be ‘good enough’. We might choose to run a bit more in games with him at the helm, or maybe try to go deep a bit more. Fact is St Pete, we’ve got the capability to do all that.
Yet to me our 2025 season record will be more a reflection of how well our defense does. We put up 30 PPG average last season, and only won 10 games doing that. Bucs scored the 4th most points last season (502). Three teams scored more points than we did. Lions scored 564 points (finished with 15 wins). Bills scored 525 points (finished with 13 wins). Ravens scored 518 points (finished with 12 wins). That’s an average of about 3 wins more than we had, and I’d contend that it was because all 3 had better defenses than we had. THAT’S where we need to improve.
May 6th, 2025 at 8:23 pm
Not what most people expected in the first round, but I have no problem with any of the Bucs draft picks. I guess Gennaro Filice has no problem reaching for need instead of taking the best long term talent available – a recipe for long term failure more times than not.
May 6th, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Props, DR. Well said.
Both takes.
The thread is over.
May 6th, 2025 at 9:39 pm
I cant wait to see EE blow up….if Chris gets back to form and big Mike is still killing it, thats 3 number ones out there….yeah, good luck with that LOL.
You gotta strike while the irons hot, and we;ve got a hot QB, O line and run game. And the D picks we made afterwards should def show up on film compared to paper right now. We kicked butt this draft…and we signed Reddick…man please!!
May 6th, 2025 at 10:00 pm
J-Mac is going to be the real deal along with EE.
And then there’s Mike and Chris – lol.
RW was underutilized as a pass catcher 2nd half of the season. Bucky has good hands.
Our tight ends are developing into a very solid unit.
Hands-wise it’s an embarrassment of riches.
Defensively we still have depth issues but IF we can stay healthy I’d bet money our defense is at least top 10 this upcoming season. We’ve got more talent and some hungry dudes on D
May 6th, 2025 at 11:34 pm
None of us will REALLY be able to grade this class for a couple years at least, but, seeing what the Bucs did with their picks compared to what some other teams did with theirs, this is a laughable ranking.
May 7th, 2025 at 1:10 am
I dunno I get the rationale…if Egbuka could play outside- but he can’t. He’s another slot guy. That you just spent a number one pick on. I mean even if Godwin and Evans are fine, what are you going to do with him? You have invested a ton of money and a number pick on arguably a lesser impact position.That still doesn’t solve your problem when Mike pulls another hamstring or need another handful of plays off. The offense is just not effective without that outside threat on the field because it’s a short passing game and the defense takes it away. I mean the one thing we are missing with those guys healthy is speed and he doesn’t have it either.
May 7th, 2025 at 5:43 am
The “bucs were 0-4 because mike and chris were out” is a fake narrative. in 2 of those 4 losses the bucs had over 300 yards passing.
May 7th, 2025 at 8:18 am
The bucs lost to Baltimore giving up 41 points… Kansas City by giving up touchdown in 1st series of overtime… Lost to Atlanta allowing Kirk cousins to throw for 4 tds and finally to San Francisco by letting them march down the field in the last 41 seconds and kick a game winning field goal. Talk about misinformation
May 7th, 2025 at 8:25 am
LOL I wish Felice was right about doubling up on edge rusher. Did we get a second one and nobody told me? The “grades” are even more ridiculous when it’s obvious that the “professional writer” did virtually no research!
Geez!
Go Bucs!
May 7th, 2025 at 10:14 am
Felice , lol ! You know what they say about opinions, and his really stinks. Maybe he should do his homework before farting out of his mouth. Go Bucs
May 7th, 2025 at 1:36 pm
At the end of the year is when drafts can truly be ranked. If all busts then is there a Super F tier?
If all made roster and contributed to making the team better then Felice grade is insignificant.
Then five years from now see how many guys are still on our team or if not are still on NFL rosters. What kind of impact did they make?