Todd Bowles Offers Analysis Of Charlie Heck
July 28th, 2025
How did he do today?
The sad news this morning about David Walker seemed to have paused the freakout over Tristan Wirfs having knee surgery.
It’s unknown when Wirfs, the Bucs’ All-Pro tackle, will be back. Every Bucs fan had to have the shivers seeing pictures of Wirfs on crutches during practice.
Previously, Bucs coach Todd Bowles tried to ramp down the freakout saying how it was totally unfair to analyze Wirfs’ projected replacement, Charlie Heck, while in underwear football.
Bowles is right. You can’t hit in underwear football. So how can a lineman be studied if he’s not playing real football?
Today was the first day in pads (thankfully) and Bowles was asked for an assessment of Heck actually hitting people.
“He was competitive,” Bowles said. “Charlie is competitive. He has very good feet. The technique is going to take some time to get down in pads [but] he had some good one-on-one reps.
“I’d be interested in going back and see the tape and see how he played [in] the team drills.”
Yes, Joe was there didn’t notice anything egregious coming from Heck. If Joe did, Joe would have typed it up.
But to be fair, it’s not cool to judge Heck, bad or good, on one practice in pads.
Joe thinks the Bucs are playing the patient game here. If, through the next three weeks of practices and two preseason games, Heck is too shaky, then Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht will probably swing some sort of deal signing a guy or trading.
Remember, in a hair over a month, rosters must be shaved to 53. There are going to be a lot of good buys in the NFL bargain bin.
Therefore, Joe doesn’t believe there is a reason to panic about Heck. Yet.
July 28th, 2025 at 3:42 pm
Freakouts and panic decisions don’t help. Heck should be fine, and maybe they have to adjust the offense a little bit for the first few weeks with Wirfs out. That’s scheming. You play to your strengths and cover your weaknesses. They’ll adjust.
July 28th, 2025 at 3:43 pm
No news is good news!
July 28th, 2025 at 3:44 pm
Can I get out of permanent m0deration if I plead for more Shilo articles? 🤣
July 28th, 2025 at 4:05 pm
Its never good to hear that the technique is going to take some time for a guy that’s been in the NFL 4 or 5 years – is it?
July 28th, 2025 at 4:21 pm
What the Heck?
July 28th, 2025 at 4:39 pm
The dude is like 6’8 330 lbs,
He’s athletic with good footwork and upper body strength
He has all of the necessary traits and intangibles
July 28th, 2025 at 5:06 pm
Joe – How did YaYa and Braswell stack up against Heck?
Joe doesn’t really do Q&A in this space. And Joe doesn’t have the benefit of replay at practice. Joe takes practice notes and makes other observations in real-time. If you don’t see “updates” there, then Joe didn’t see anything significant worth writing about.–Joe
July 28th, 2025 at 6:43 pm
Heck is tall so he’s probably trying to lower his pads instead of being stood up so he can have a better base to ground him most likely. Also different teams will emphasis different techniques for their plays, tweaking things.
July 28th, 2025 at 7:20 pm
I don’t take much stock in what Bowles says anymore. Like with injuries. He’ll say a player tweaked something only to find out he’s lost for the season. He’s mastered coach speak. Arians would call it like he sees it. Todd, not so much.
July 28th, 2025 at 9:34 pm
Justin Skule perhaps?
July 29th, 2025 at 8:14 am
I don’t think Jason should wait too long to pull the trigger on someone else. Whoever it may be has still got to learn our offense. Quickly.
Go Bucs!
July 29th, 2025 at 9:42 pm
We’re pretty sure that whoever was lining up opposite him was dropping into coverage anyway, so naturally he didn’t look bad.
July 29th, 2025 at 11:12 pm
This guy will be good enough for 4 games.