Former NFL Safety Thinks There’s A Good Safety Available For The Bucs
May 20th, 2025
Another free agent move, maybe?
Look, Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht and Bucs coach Todd Bowles have the street cred that says they know what they are doing with the Bucs secondary.
The Bucs selected two corners on Day 2 of the draft. But no safety. This, despite safety being the biggest hole on the defense other than inside linebacker.
The Bucs released Jordan Whitehead in the offseason and have talked about moving second-year corner Tykee Smith to safety. Joe isn’t sure that’s a wise move. This team is looking to make a Super Bowl run, not break in a safety who is wet behind the ears.
It seems former NFL safety and current Chicago-area high school coach Matt Bowen sees an inexpensive safety option the Bucs could bring in and plug the hole. That would be free agent Justin Simmons.
Simmons fits really well as an interchangeable safety opposite Antoine Winfield Jr. in Todd Bowles’ defense. The Bucs played the most zone coverage in the league last season (71.7% of the time), and Simmons can spin to the post or walk down in Cover 3. He’s an excellent communicator with field awareness. Simmons has picked off 32 passes over his nine-year career, including two last season.
Well… Bowles said he needs ballhawks. And those two picks are one more than Jamel Dean. Smith had two picks last season in his rookie year for the Bucs.
Why not sign Simmons? He’s decent, not great. Joe sees folks thinking the Bucs ought to take a flyer on Von Miller. That seems very un-Licht-like.
Miller is about done or is done. Sure, maybe in part-time he could get six sacks like he did in Buffalo last year. Hopefully, YaYa Diaby can do that playing full-time and he’s sure a lot cheaper than 36-year-old Miller.
If the Bucs consider throwing Team Glazer loot at Miller, why not use those same greenbacks and try to pry Trey Hendrickson loose from Cincinnati.
Joe has a hunch Hendrickson would enjoy playing just a couple of hours from his hometown of Apopka.
May 20th, 2025 at 7:13 am
Winfield + Izien
Tykes Smith + Merriweather
And Josh Hayes as our #5 safety?
I’m totally fine with this.
And Shilo can make the practice squad this year, then I’ll be very happy.
May 20th, 2025 at 7:19 am
From what I saw of Tykee…I have a high degree of confidence that he can play well wherever you put him…
May 20th, 2025 at 7:24 am
Wow Joe, your focus is meandering nowadays. Always seems to come back to Trey Hendrickson for some reason though. Hmmm.
I agree with Bowen that Justin Simmons could fit nicely in our Safety position group. He’s 6’2″ & 202 lbs and we could use some height back there. Ran a 4.61 sec 40 yd in his Combine, but what really stands out to me is that he had a 40″ vertical (I’ve never seen that before; rather impressive when you’re already starting at 6’2″).
I’d classify him as a ball hawk … 28 INTs in his 7-year career. Fairly decent in coverage too; 66.7% Pass Completion Allowed over his career. What’s not as impressive is that’s he been tagged with 24 TDs over those same 7 years (he seems to consistently average about 3 TDs allowed per year, almost exactly the same as Winfield has).
Signing Simmons woulld certainly improve our depth at Safety. But more importantly IMO, it’d give us some experience … and some height. Right now we’re lacking both to a degree.
May 20th, 2025 at 7:29 am
Tykee Smith is playing opposite Winfield Jr. . Izien is their backup. Lots of people are sleeping on JJ Roberts. I think he’s the most likely UDFA to crack the 53 this year. At the least I think he makes the practice squad and rotates in during the season. Merriweather and Banks will be good depth and camp competition. We do not need any aging veterans impeding the young talent from developing. This team is nothing like the cobbled together Brady era Frankenstein monster of yesteryear.
May 20th, 2025 at 7:31 am
Let’s not go down the free agent safety route again. The Bucs have had zero luck with that.
May 20th, 2025 at 7:44 am
I’d rather find a Nickerson or Quarles out there somewhere
May 20th, 2025 at 7:44 am
This is not accurate: “Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht and Bucs coach Todd Bowles have the street cred that says they know what they are doing with the Bucs secondary.”
Dean. Davis. Whitehead. Edwards. Who am o forgetting? All gone except one oft-injured underperforming CB.
Poor results.
May 20th, 2025 at 7:45 am
I’d lean more toward Simmons than Miller, although Miller certainly has the pedigree.
To be fair, Simmons does too.
My only issue with Miller is his age. We’re trying to get younger.
If we’re going to go the FA route at safety I’d rather see us take a chance on Simmons.
May 20th, 2025 at 8:16 am
Yeah, the entire front office and defensive coaching should have been launched the moment Tom Brady hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in the air in the Tampa night sky back in February 2021.
Imagine thinking with those trash players the Bucs could beat Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Pat Mahomes in three straight games?
The nerve to think a team could be successful with a collection like that.
May 20th, 2025 at 8:25 am
Or – save all of the money to pay your very expensive list of free agents coming up over the next two seasons.
May 20th, 2025 at 8:41 am
Just sign Simeon Rice and be done with it.
May 20th, 2025 at 8:47 am
Stop Playing Around with the 50th season Jason LIGHT
Go Get jalen Ramsey and add him to this secondary.
I’m tired of Getting Torched on Defense
We Are Decent Against the Run but Go Get Ramsey and we become the strongest secondary in the NFC.
RAMSEY. WINFIELD JR. LAVONTE DAVID. HASSON REDDICK. VITA VEA
That sounds like a championship roster defense to me.
May 20th, 2025 at 8:53 am
Tykee was a safety in college and is built like one. Let’s stick with him- more upside.
May 20th, 2025 at 8:56 am
sign a vet s or lb!! Need more depth!
May 20th, 2025 at 8:59 am
There is a good linebacker available for the Bucs. Kyzir White.
May 20th, 2025 at 9:03 am
Tykee Smith was rock solid at the slot CB position and will do fine transitioning to safety. I’m ok with bringing in Justin Simmons to compete but I think he’ll have to outright beat Tykee.
May 20th, 2025 at 9:10 am
Another pretty good available safety is Julian Blackmon
May 20th, 2025 at 9:33 am
CChead Says: There is a good linebacker available for the Bucs. Kyzir White.
I second that, free agent LB Kyzir White is a good cover LB with speed. He is also a good tackler. Sounds like several teams are pursuing him.
May 20th, 2025 at 9:37 am
I like the 3-man rotation we have, so long as Winfield is healthy and back to his standard, but size and depth are indeed a concern.
Winfield 5-9, Smith 5-10, Izien 5-10. If one of those guys goes down, especially Winfield, then the safety group could be in trouble.
At least with the CBs, you feel like if a guy goes down there, there is ample talent to step in and still have depth to the 3rd and 4th guys this year.
May 20th, 2025 at 9:38 am
And a heck of a lot cheaper than 20+ million per year
May 20th, 2025 at 9:44 am
In his tenure with the Broncos the team finished 2nd in the Division once, no better than 3rd in the Division, and finished 4th most of the time. Simmons played well when Fangio was there but their offense sucked and he got canned. Broncos played schedules that had some pretty bad QB’s, Sure he got Maholmes a few times but those INT’s were more from predictability because he played him a lot.
List of top 5 in INT’s since 2016 all played on less than average teams and benefitted from playing some real bad teams/QB’s.
In the 2024 season, Justin Simmons had a high missed tackle rate for a safety, at 19.8% according to Pro Football Focus. This missed tackle rate was the highest of his career, and ATL All Day said that he had a 59.9 overall PFF grade.
In addition to Simmons the Falcons also let Grady Jarrett go and he was good enough to be picked up by the Bears. Seems to me that ATL are working towards more than just Good in their secondary in 2025. Missing 1 in every 5 tackles is not good when you are the last line of defense and probably why ATL let him walk.
He will just lay back and someone will get him eventually. Still better than a lot out there and will add depth.
May 20th, 2025 at 9:46 am
Modhair
SMB, Vernon Hargreaves…
May 20th, 2025 at 10:12 am
I like the idea of bringing in a safety who can help us. Never liked the idea of moving Smith. Safety was a problem last year. Whitehead was hurt and not up to par when healthy. I really do not think we will bring in any more pass rushers at this point. Maybe if they come cheap. Hendrickson does not.
Go Bucs!
May 20th, 2025 at 10:15 am
Young and hungry wins super bowls. It isn’t paint by numbers.
May 20th, 2025 at 10:22 am
Aren’t the Bucs doing OTAs this weekend? We haven’t had the full team on the grass yet. Let’s see what it looks like before we start proclaiming what our needs will be. I think Tykee, and Winfield will be starting. I have Morrison beating out Dean to start outside, with Zyon as the otherside. Parrish will be the starting slot. Dean, and Iz backups.
May 20th, 2025 at 10:28 am
All we need is pressure from the other side of the line
May 20th, 2025 at 10:48 am
Joe still hasn’t got the memo that Hendrickson is not happening. And again, if you’re going to float this crap, just once try proposing which young player (who they have investments in) are you going to push aside? I have yet to see Joe address the roster makeup resulting from a trade. And Joe hasn’t really spoken about the wisdom of giving a gigantic multi year payout to a 31 year old edge rusher. How the hell is that going to work with needed extensions on the horizon for key players… like our QB…. Not to mention the escalating cap hits for Wirfs and others. Hendrickson is NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN.
May 20th, 2025 at 11:01 am
said it from the beginning it should be Hendrickson, guess 17.5 sacks is not enough
May 20th, 2025 at 11:03 am
BakerFan Says:
May 20th, 2025 at 11:01 am
Not. Gonna. Happen. Makes no sense.
May 20th, 2025 at 11:36 am
Von Miller is done, Simmons is worth a look.
May 20th, 2025 at 11:50 am
As much as I would love to have Trey Hendrickson he probably cost a kings ransom in salary not to mention draft picks.
May 20th, 2025 at 11:53 am
Todd Bowles is great.
May 20th, 2025 at 12:31 pm
Smith is a really good football player and can have success wherever you put him. I am a smidge concerned about depth, but it’s not realistic to have amazing depth at every position. It is what it is.
May 20th, 2025 at 12:42 pm
I put the chances of the Bucs signing Simmons at 5%, the Bucs trading for Hendrickson at .001% (even if the Bengals are dumb enough to trade him, Washington would outbid the Bucs in draft capital, IMHO).
May 20th, 2025 at 12:54 pm
Fan of the South … ‘Missing 1 in every 5 tackles is not good when you are the last line of defense and probably why ATL let him walk.’
I’m never sure whose statistics to believe, but Pro-Football-Reference (PFR) appears to have a lot of credibility. Over his 7-year career (108 games), they list Justin Simmons with a 8.8% Missed Tackle Rate (MTR). His worst year was 11.1% back in 2020 (one of the years that he made the Pro Bowl curiously enough). That’s a far cry from 20%.
As a basis of comparison, Antoine Winfield (the league’s highest paid Safety?), has a 7.7% Missed Tackle Rate over his 5 years. Vonn Bell has an 8.0% MTR over his 9 years, Minkah Fitzpatrick has an 8.7% MTR over his 7 years, Tyrann Matthieu sports an 11.1% MTR over his 7 years, and Budda Baker has a 9.2% MTR over his 7 year career.
BTW Fan, came across an interesting article by CBS Sports titled ‘Ranking top 20 safeties for 2024 NFL season’. They ranked Justin Simmons #13, and had this to say about him …
“Simmons is the best safety on the market, and still one of the top players in the NFL at his position. It’s frankly pretty surprising that he didn’t land a deal during the early portion of free agency. There are plenty of teams with salary-cap space who could potentially hand him a sizable deal, but that’s also not usually the kind of thing that happens at this point in the offseason. Maybe he gets something more like a one-year contract with the ability to hit the open market again next winter.”
He may still be on the open market because no team wants to pay his asking price. Never know though; maybe if a SB contender offers a 1-year deal it might entice him to sign on.
May 20th, 2025 at 1:06 pm
I do not like our safety depth after Winfield and Tykee, so Justin Simmons would be a great backup depth piece if he can be signed for the veteran minimum.
May 20th, 2025 at 1:08 pm
am i the only one who seems to think we need one more real deal ILB…not another safety…
middle of the field was our disaster spot last year…
what if LVD finally ages…
what if dennis remains injury prone, or the shoulder is bum…
what if lavonte’s friend from miami is meh meh meh…
we def need one more ILB…
this extra safety talk should be left for the trade deadline…
and if everything goes haywire…sign a guy off the street or bring back whitehead…or something…trade…figure it out moving thru the season…
but land an ILB now
May 20th, 2025 at 1:10 pm
also if you believe you basically have the best safety in AWJ, then you’re okay…
but if the organization thinks he’s suddenly cooked after signing the contract — then heck yeah you better find a safety,,,and fast……lol
May 20th, 2025 at 1:12 pm
i do like izien and merriweather a lot actually…
and shilo as the 5th…just for the sanders name alone at this point…
and def have a 5th safety laying in the weeds on the PS…
we good
May 20th, 2025 at 3:15 pm
Adam.
Compare Bucs UDFAs JJ Roberts (Marshall) to S. Sanders. It’s not close.
IMO Roberts is going to be the guy who surprises everyone this year and makes the team.
May 20th, 2025 at 3:58 pm
I think Tykee will be a big upgrade opposite AWJ.
My guess is the coaches feel the same.
Izien and Merriweather should be decent backing up our starters.
Of course I wouldn’t mind another stud back there but, right now, I’m more concerned with LB.
Safety play should be better.
CB play should be better.
Pass rush should be better.
IF the above is true and…
We avoid catastrophic injuries and,
If we stay steady against the run,
We should field a top 10 defense to go with a top 5 offense 🤞🏼
May 20th, 2025 at 4:03 pm
Stanglassman Says:
May 20th, 2025 at 3:15 pm
This is exactly why I couldn’t understand the fascination with Sanders. People look at the name and nothing else, but nobody noticed we signed another safety who had a draftable grade, a guy who probably has a better chance than Sanders. But people love their celebrity names.
May 20th, 2025 at 4:31 pm
Joe,
Really with you on Hendrickson. Signing him would make me feel better about the 2025 draft class. If Bucs really want to challenge Eagles and Lions in NFC Championship, it is going to take Hendrickson. Makes sense given that Lavonte David and ME13 can’t afford to wait for defense to develop. Tell Licht next week that Joebucsfan sentiment is overwhelmingly in favor of some sort of deal.