How Badly Was Offensive Line Destroyed By Injuries
July 15th, 2026
Stay healthy, please.
If a Bucs fan came to Joe and said injuries on offense wrecked the 2025 season, Joe wouldn’t argue.
Joe believed two years ago and believes now that the Bucs, when healthy, have at worst the third-best offensive line in the NFL.
That was all thrown out the window last year as Alex Blickle, typing in Aaron Schatz’s FTN Football Almanac 2026, explains.
[T]he projected starting line is the exact same line that had a ton of success together in 2024. Performance dropped off in 2025 in just about every offensive line metric compared to 2024. They were 15th in ESPN’s pass block win rate and 27th in their run block win rate last season. In 2024, they finished fifth and sixth, respectively. In Weeks 1 to 3, without superstar left tackle Tristan Wirfs, Baker Mayfield was pressured on 37.4% of dropbacks. Only Shedeur Sanders (45.5%) was pressured at a higher rate than that throughout the season.
Even though Tristan Wirfs was not his normal dominant self last season, largely due to recovering from knee surgery, that stat on pressures without Wirfs is pretty eye-opening.
Yeah, one can argeu the most important element in the Bucs’ success this fall is largely uncontrollable: health on the offensive line.
July 15th, 2026 at 12:27 am
And yet we won all those games. Baker is the most important element, but the line is for sustained success.
July 15th, 2026 at 12:48 am
I remember our last Superbowl win. The opposing mvp qb had a decimated line and couldn’t score a touchdown in the Superbowl against a Bowles led defense. So yeah even the best need quality protection. It starts in the trenches. Go Bucs.
July 15th, 2026 at 4:23 am
I’ve seen every Bucs game for 40+ years…..
NEVER seen so many injuries to a Buccaneers offensive line nor a Bucs offense as last year. Not even close…
July 15th, 2026 at 5:19 am
Last year the Bucs were 2nd in how many different OL T/G/C combinations played. It’s not an excuse and it’s not the only reason the team did not win games.
But to say it wasn’t a factor is denying reality.
July 15th, 2026 at 5:45 am
Chukwuma looked like a freak of nature.
Very quick, fast, flexible and aggressive.
I really hope he had a good off-season and learned to play RT as well.
I also really hope Sua is healthy. He is a decent backup guard.
I hope Klein gets cut. He’s wasting a roster spot.
I also hope Wirfs starts to learn LG.
He’s a natural LG. He’s the next Larry Allen.
Maybe Wirfs can switch to LG when he gets older.
July 15th, 2026 at 6:21 am
Owing to lack of depth, we lost almost every game after Bredesen went down
July 15th, 2026 at 6:25 am
Yep, and it’s why if Bain didn’t drop into our laps I wouldn’t have hated it if we took that guard out of Penn State. Ioane looks to be a stud.
July 15th, 2026 at 6:27 am
Let’s hope we don’t have any more Ryan Jenson and David Walker type disasters before training camp barely begins this year.
July 15th, 2026 at 8:04 am
Wirfs not being available for camp last year, and having knee surgery did seem like the start of the Ryan Jensen season. Bad way to start off camp without your star LT, and leader of the O line. Having all five starting camp not rehabilitating will be huge. Both sides of the ball are coming into camp healthy. Can’t ask for better news to start.
July 15th, 2026 at 8:31 am
The training/medical staff made yet another huge miscalculation/judgment on a player’s injury. Wirfs was hurt during the 2024 season and should’ve had surgery to clean up his knee right after the season ended. Instead, they tried the Jensen method, let it heal on it’s own. Fine, im all about natural healing when possible. However, the knee should have been tested again in the Spring or early Summer and then fixed properly then. Instead they took it right up until training camp. At that point it was too late for Wirfs to be ready for Week 1 or Week 2. Then the kibe shuffle began and the oline never recovered with more injuries to Mauch and Luke.
July 15th, 2026 at 8:47 am
Joe is like a fisherman when he talks about the Bucs OL. With every story, the fish get bigger and the OL gets better! 🙂 The quote has the OL as 5th and 6th best in ’24 and that seems about right to me. IF they can stay healthy this year, they can move way up to #1.
July 15th, 2026 at 9:12 am
If we’re going to continue banging the injury excuse drum on repeat without any introspection into the actual cause of the demise of the 2025 season, then we are doomed to repeat it.
Other teams have injury problems and find a way to win despite roster limitations. But that requires competent coaches and executives.
Playing kick the can down the road and trying to paper over the reality of a flawed roster construction and an overall coaching philosophy that is proven to be a failure, is a recipe for disaster.
July 15th, 2026 at 9:57 am
Teacherman, Sua is no longer with the bucs
July 15th, 2026 at 10:12 am
Uncontrollable is right. It is that way every year though. We just had piss poor depth. Hainsy gone. Skule gone. Most everyone playing out of position at some point. Probably not a stat on this but when teams do the O line shuffle it rarely works out well in my experience. BTW Wirfs may have been hurting or simply not 100% the entire season.
Go Bucs!
July 15th, 2026 at 10:28 am
The injury excuse is used to mask the team’s biggest fattest problem.
July 15th, 2026 at 10:52 am
@328 Its the same mask you have hiding behind your comments…