First Night Practice: Focusing on the D-Line | Training Camp Report | Tampa Bay Buccaneers

First Night Practice: Focusing on the D-Line | Training Camp Report | Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Welcome into training camp report presented by Advent Health. Casey Phillips here with senior writer and editor Scott Smith. And do we look less sweaty? It’s because we are. Our favorite practice of the year is here. It is the indoor and it’s the night practice. It’s our favorite for multiple reasons. One, air conditioning. Two, there are so many fans in the stands and I just I don’t know. I just feel like this feels special with it being at night. It’s the only one like this. And to me, this is just always one of the most fun every year. Yeah. And we’re going to discuss in a bit why this is good for the Buccaneers in a couple ways. Yeah, there’s always a method behind the madness. There’s always a reason. It should be a lot of fun. Yes. And also, in case anyone’s wondering, we are potentially going to get run over by giant offensive line. I don’t know why we always do this right next to all the biggest people. I know the biggest people. So, I’m convinced it’s cuz they want us to get run over. That’s what it is every good theater. Well, let’s start with some of our news from recent practices and just some updates and things that we’ve learned. Again, of course, we started the last show talking about how there were reports about David Walker, but now, unfortunately, they have been confirmed. Yeah, he has a torn ACL. He’s going to have surgery out for the season. As Coach Bull said, uh, he had been making a big big impact. That’s what makes this one hurt a little bit because sometimes you might think, well, for, you know, you can live with waiting till his second season, but he was making a big impact and I think he was going to be a big part of that rotation. And so it it stinks for him of course most of all but for the team. Uh but the Todd Bull says he has to treat it as a red shirt season as this point. So I guess learn as much as you can from the playbook and and you know work on that injury and be ready to go next year. Yeah. And then to your point though as much as he was planning on being a big part of that rotation hopefully and what they’d seen from him. Thankfully it does feel like that rotation is pretty deep. Is that how the team feels of now even without him they still feel good about that position? Yeah. Now, in a typical game in the regular season, you you usually have five outside linebackers. Man, these guys are getting close. I know you usually have five outside linebackers uh active. Four of them play a decent amount and maybe one gets a few snaps. So, if you take that as a template, you have Hassan Reic, who I’ve heard is having a great camp. You have Yaya Diyabi who just keeps making strides. You have Chris Brazwell, who they’re really helping makes a big secondyear leap. And you have Anthony Nelson. I mean, what more can you say about what he’s done? He just he’s good for five or six every season and he’s just that reliable guy that does everything right. Yeah. Steady Eddie every year. So then somebody has to step up to be that fifth guy. Is it Maris Wats? Is it Jose Ramirez? Somebody like that. So yeah, I think you know barring further injuries and that’s always something you have to worry about at training camp. I think they feel good about their depth. It’s just a shame for David Walker. Yeah. And in terms of other injury updates, I know that we’ve seen that Kate Uton has not been out here the last couple practices. At first you were wondering, oh, is it just a vet rest day? But then when it was multiple days, you kind of wondered. So what’s the news on him? Yeah, he’s one of a few guys that coach Bull says has a bit of a hamstring strain. You’re cautious at this time of the year. And that’s the word, especially with starters like you know who is I mean what do they always say about Kade? He already knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s always in the right place at the right time on every single play. So, I don’t think missing a little time is a big problem for Kate Otten. And, you know, it’s given some more snaps to uh Devin Gulp, who apparently has made some splash plays in the first week of training camp and that’s good to see. So, yeah, let’s tell everyone a little bit about why there is an indoor practice. What about now and and why tonight and the timing of it being a night one and indoors and all of that outside of just I’m sure coach BS was thinking of us when he made that decision. Outside of that and him just being so generous to us, what is the reason behind it? I think the timing is the key part here. Um it’s they’ve been outside for the last couple days and it’s been very very hot. Yesterday in particular was record highs for Tampa. Yeah. And so you you you lose your legs a little bit after a while. And so coming in here, Mike Evans was talking about it. He’s torn because he doesn’t like playing on turf, but he does like getting out of the sun. So I think that part of it coach thinks will refresh their legs a little bit. And you do it tonight and then tomorrow is that mandatory players day off. So that’s two days in a row for them to escape the heat and maybe get their legs back under them for the next set of three series practices which are all going to be in the morning heat. But also the idea of practicing at night allows them to p rehearse a schedule for a night game. And the Buccaneers have four of those on the schedule this year. And it just, you know, when you play the night game, you have to figure out how do you spend your day because usually you like to get up, get right into it, right? Yeah. How do you get amped up in time? And I don’t think anybody in this building thinks it’s anything other than coincidence. But it is also a fact that the Buccaneers have not fared well in night games over the last two years. The Bucks are 0 and6 as a matter of fact in prime time games over the last two years. Now listen, some of those Atlanta game on Thursday night, Bucks were this close to putting that one away and it and they it got away from at the end. The Chiefs game in Kansas City went to overtime. It’s not like they haven’t been competitive, but they have lost all six of those games. Again, I don’t think that that’s why they’re having a night practice. I don’t think they think they have a problem with night games, but it’s worth mentioning when you talk about rehearsing for a night game. And so, also, when Todd BS talked not just about why he chose to do this indoor, he was also asked about the idea of replacing um Tristan Worfs for however long that’s going to be and that we’d kind of talked about this last show, but the confirmation that maybe they’re not done with that assessment of adding or not to the roster in that spot. Yeah, I think the Buccaneers are looking. Um, they signed a couple guys as we talked about, including a tackle, but it’s a guy that hadn’t seen a lot of hasn’t really seen any regular season action in the NFL. So, I think they’re still looking around to see if there’s any veteran addition that you can make if for nothing else than some experienced depth. So, I think they’re still keeping themselves open to that possibility of adding a veteran tackle even though it appears Tristan Warf is coming along nicely in his recovery. Another guy, another position also where coach has mentioned several times that they could add another player’s quarterback. Michael Pratt has not practiced as of yet and his his timetable for return isn’t sure and they might like to have another guy in there and maybe it’s a veteran guy who’s seen some action. Yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see. All right, we’re going to take a quick break here and if we don’t get run over in the meantime, we will be back with more here on Training Care Report presented by Advent Health. If we told the world 50 years ago that this is what Tampa Bay would become, they wouldn’t have believed us. Imagine that. An unproven team in an unproven city. They couldn’t see what we saw. [Applause] The underdog in the unknown. But ever since the goalpost came down in 77, this town’s been hooked. fixated on the work and focused on that prize. Times change and boy so is this place. I mean, even as the creamsicle and white turned to pewtor and red, the wild spirit of our crew remains. Take a look at the last five decades where the incredible has accomplished the impossible. Our greatest memories have the bucks at the heart. We danced in the rain, man. We took the Lombardi for a ride and year after year, the biggest party in Tampa happens right here. Because this team, these moments, they share one thing in common. They’re made by Tampa Bay. Welcome back into training camp report presented by Advent Health. Casey Phillips here with Scott Smith and I’ve decided we are being used to just tell you just how large offensive linemen are in case we’re basically being used as the comparison as they stand right behind us and just dwarf us over here that I think when you just read this group the control group that’s exactly right so that you can see just how gigantic they are in case when they’re out there together they look normal but then they stand right behind us and even I looking at the monitor was like wow we look like the only good thing is they’re blocking going in that direction. Yes, that’s that’s the good thing. That’s we we are hopefully therefore safe. Maybe they’re protecting us right now is how Yeah. Right. I think we should look at it. Deacto quarterbacks right now. Yes. All right. So, let’s dive into a few of these other topics of of what we’re going to be looking at at camp as we discuss some different position battles and and things. I know we always say that special teams kind of gets overlooked sometimes, but especially during training camp, that’s just one of the most important aspects of who makes a roster potentially, what some of these spots go to. And I know that punt returner is one that we’re going to be interested to see. And I know Tez Johnson talked about that a little bit. Yeah. And you know it we probably won’t know a lot till the games, right? U when there’s actual tackling going on, but TZ Johnson really wants that job. He wasn’t shy about that in the offseason. He says when he got to college at first it was his first love. That’s what they put him at. um and he didn’t know he was he’s obviously not the biggest guy and so he’s always been small for his position or for college football or NFL football and maybe at early in his career wasn’t certain how much receiver is going to play but he loved playing punt returner uh he made a point because his numbers in college are good I think he averaged like 9.3 yards per punt return something like that did have a touchdown um but in in college when you snap the ball all the players can immediately go down the field to cover. And that’s why they they they tend to do that thing where the punter runs to the side and kicks because he’s trying to give the guys time to come get downfield. In the NFL, the only guys that can leave the line of scrimmage until the ball is actually kicked are the gunners. They go at the snap. Everybody else has to wait until the punt is kicked. So, that should open up opportunities, make it a little bit, you know, he’s trying to beat 11 guys, right? 10 guys right in his face in college. Now he might only have one or two that he needs to beat to make a play, you know, a big play or at least a medium-sized play. You you have to start out in this competition think saying that Trey Palmer is the favorite because he’s the incumbent and they trust him. He didn’t put the ball on the ground. There were not a lot of big plays, but he his average of nine yards was fine and I think he’s perfectly capable of making big plays in the punt return game because he’s very fast obviously. So, it didn’t really happen last year, but it certainly could. So, I think he’s the favorite. But Tez is gonna fight for that job. And whichever one does get that job, that’s going to have a lot to do with how the receiving core is constructed at the start of the season when you have to cut down to 53. Yeah. And another one of the battles we talked about is the nickel corner spot. And because of the whole idea of, oh, Taiki did great last year, but oh, now we’re moving him to safety. So, now who’s going to step into that slot role? And man, Todd BS is not a guy who just gives praise willy-nilly to people. He’s not a guy who’s quick to just say a bunch of nice things. He’s the one actually usually that’s quick to be like, “Oh, it’s shorts and t-shirts.” Or, “Oh, it’s this.” He had some nice things to say about Christianizian. Yeah. I mean, he was making a joke, but the the joke was half a half serious, right? Half serious. He was talking about how valuable that Christian Izzian has made himself to this team by being able to play so many positions and play them well in secondary. And uh he said I think it’s safe to say he’s made the team. Yeah. Is the way he put it. And you know I think there’s probably 30 something guys that can feel the same way. But it’s cool that he’s in that group because just two years ago he was an undrafted free agent out of Ruckers who was battling to make the team and then he won the nickel slat corner job. I mean, last year they gave that job to Tai Smith, but somehow Christian still ended up playing like 75% of the team’s defensive snaps because they needed him so much as injuries happened at safety and at slot corner and at outside corner, he ended up playing a ton and just doing great at all of them. So, he’s such a valuable glue guy for that secondary and I think coach really appreciates him as a player. Yeah, for sure. And you know, we had Gerald McCoy on the show the other day and he was of course unsurprisingly just raving about Vita and Collia as a duo and talking about the ways that they are the top duo at that position in the league and all the reasons why. And he we were talking about the idea of man, can you imagine if Collia is able to have a full preseason training camp, come into the season healthy because his first couple years that hasn’t been the case and I know that the team is taking some steps to to try to ensure that that happens. So that first that rookie season, he he uh injured his calf really early in training camp and pretty much missed all the preparation time for the regular season. Did come back for the season over, but immediately aggravated it and missed like four games and was rusty as in his own words when he came back. But he still had a very nice rookie season. And then last year, I mean, literally, it was the last practice before the first regular season game, and it was about 10 minutes left in that practice when he his calf again, and ended up missing the first five games of the season. And then you look at it and he had seven and a half sacks, led the team last year. Um he’s he’s he’s been great when he’s been on the field and he’s probably going to be even better as he continues to uh develop in the NFL, but what the Bucks want is 17 games of that. So they are monitoring, in coach BS’s words, everything that he does every day. So how does he warm up? How does he prepare himself just to try to make sure he doesn’t have a recurrence of that calf injury that’s cost him so much time? They want him on the field for 17 games because he’s been fantastic at applying pressure up the middle, which is a hard thing to get in the NFL. Yeah. And when you can have he and Vita both doing it all all season long, that’s going to be wild. Well, we’re about to go to break, but we have one more thing we wanted to show before we do. We really don’t have anything to say about this other than we just wanted an excuse to show this highlight. I I did you Yeah. That Tai Smith, look at this interception. Also, we just love that our producers did such a great job of capturing this play. Look at this play that Taiki Smith made. The toe tap. It’s unbelievable. I was watching this play from the other sideline. So down the line and I This is a red zone drill obviously and I thought at the time, oh man, that’s a really good pass breakup. And then I see him running down the sideline. What’s going on? Because he went up with the one hand backhanded so that you know he’s going to knock that ball down. He turned it into a pick. I feel like that stat should count as a pass breakup and an interception. He basically did both anyway. He should get two for it because it’s like he did both things in this play. That was He came to the sideline. I wasn’t sure what I saw. So I said, “Did did you just pick that one-handed?” He said humbly. Something like that. I guess in the replay I see he kind of batted it and brought it in. He really is a humble guy, too. He does not fit the stereotypes that people make about corners being this loud, brash, you know, easy to they’re quick to trash talk. What? He is none of those things. He is so humble to a fault to where during my interview with him, I was like, can you brag about yourself a little more, please? So, that’s what we’re here to do, to brag on Taike when he won’t do it himself because he’s too humble for that. All right, we’re going to take a quick break and we’ll be right back here with more on Training Cape Report presented by Advent Health. [Music] Look, it’s a bird. It’s a plane. Crashing a party, meet me in the sky. This is that extraterrestrial v. Let me know if you feel it. Don’t keep it aside. Tell me who do it like this. Up in the air like shoot my shot. Don’t miss tick. We got the peopleh. [Music] Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Can you see me now? Up to the stars. Can you see me now? Now the sun are coming down. Yeah. Right now it’s just you all. [Music] Welcome back into training camp report presented by Advent Health. Casey Phillips here with senior writer and editor Scott Smith. That’s my favorite thing we play in commercial breaks because just this is an inside scoop here. It’s on the Bucks cruise. My husband makes brief appearances because he had to step in and play pool volleyball with all of the players cuz someone got sick and he was the only person that seemed large enough that he might fit in with the rest of the crew. And so every time this video plays, it makes me laugh that he gets his little moment of glory. and shout out was on the winning team captained by Jamal Dean who drafted him who I will forever be indebted to to Jamal. So I just felt like every time we play that it makes me laugh. So as we talk about this team we talked a little bit about Collia Cany and Vea and just how important they’ve become to this defense and knowing how much Todd BS wants to be able to rush with four what it means when you can get the push from those two guys. This defensive line is so important to what this team wants to do. We know about those two guys. Tell us what stands out to you about the group as a whole. Uh those two guys and then who are some of the people maybe trying to make the team and what this rotation could look like? I think the Buccaneers have good depth at this position. We’re talking about the interior defensive linemen, the down lineman, not the edge rushers like Hassan Reic and Yaya. You see some of them right there. Obviously, it starts with Collijah and Vita who are the Buccaneers. One and two sack artists last year with 7.5 and seven respectively. Um, you know, they have a chance to be one of the best interior duos in the NFL. And if you can have one guy that can give you pressure up the middle, that’s fantastic. If you have two, that’s a luxury. And they do it in different ways. Colla obviously has that quick first step, great pass rush moves, arsenal of moves. VA is just so big and powerful and quicker than you would expect from a man his size. Um, Kijijah last year, well, Vita had his his careerhigh in sacks with seven. So, it’s not like he’s getting better. And Kijijah, uh, from year one to year two, even though we just talked about his injury issues, he improved his sack rate, you know, number of sacks per pass rush snap. He improved his pressure rate. He had the same exact number of pressures despite playing 40 fewer snaps than in his rookie season. He had the same number of quick pressures, which is when you get them in 2.5 seconds or less. And he shaved 210 of a second off his time to pressure. Like when you when you’re credited with a quarterback pressure, how long did it take from the snap to when you pressured the quarterback, it was around 2.87 or something like that as a rookie and it was in the two sixes last year. So, he’s getting to the quarterback faster. So, you start with those two guys. Logan Hall is a guy that I don’t think we talk about a lot a lot. this like unsung hero of the defense in in all honesty. I mean, I feel like I heard that last year on my shows with our defensive line coach and several other people saying that like he really is this guy that somehow doesn’t get talked about, but had by far maybe become one of the most improved players and was very consistent, very consistently getting pressure that they just kept being like, man, I don’t know why people don’t realize how well he’s playing. I think he’s not a self-promoter for one thing, right? And he doesn’t play me ne necessarily the most glamorous position. Uh he’s not always in on third downs, although he did have something like five and a half sacks last year, which is way even more impressive based on that. Exactly. So, um he’s just a guy that they really trust when they are in that base three, four defense as that strong side defensive end is what they call him, but we’re talking about interior defensive lineman. So, you know, he’s in a contract year, too. Yeah, that’s always a big deal. So, uh you know, I think you’re set with those three. And then another guy we should mention, I think we might have shown I didn’t I didn’t wasn’t paying attention, but we might have shown the graphic of all the defensive linemen on the team. Um there they are. You know, you got a lot of guys there. I know they like CJ Brewer a lot. Adam Gotas has some experience in this league. Yeah, Greg Gaines played a lot of snaps for them. Gaines. Yeah, he’s been overcoming an injury. I’m not sure if he’s back. Yeah, he’s he’s been out there. I think I saw him as of yesterday. Yeah, Mike Green’s a guy they liked early in his career as an undrafted free agent, but obviously we would like to uh highlight here Elijah Roberts, the um four fourth fifth round draft pick. Um a guy that really felt like they got a bit of a steal there. A defensive lineman. He’s definitely an interior lineman, but yeah, there was some discussion about that of based on what he did in college of the pass rushing and what he would be looking. does have some inside outside flexibility, but I think they envision him more like a guy who can pro provide you interior pressure at like a three technique type of position like Elijah Cany. So, um I think there’s a a lot of expectations for him to be an important part of that rotation. I think we’re set at that position. I think we got a lot of depth and you need that throughout the year because that’s a position where you can definitely incur some injuries as time goes on. Yep. Absolutely. All right. Well, that is going to do it for us on this edition of Training Camp Report presented by Advent Health. We did it. We didn’t get run over. It’s a great day. And now we’re going to go enjoy watching the rest of practice here in the air conditioning and the indoor. Thanks so much for being with us. We hope to see you at one of the remaining practices that we have outside. And if not, keep hanging out with us right here on Training Camp Report presented by Advent Health.

Senior Staff Writer Scott Smith and Team Reporter Casey Phillips report on the latest news from Buccaneers’ 2025 Training Camp. Scott and Casey discuss player updates, S Christian Izien’s versatility and the importance placed on the Bucs’ defensive line.

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