Who has the inside track to start at inside linebacker and safety to start the season?

– Owen T. via the Buccaneers app

Lavonte David and Antoine Winfield Jr. Man, that was easy! More questions like this, please.

Just kidding. I know you’re actually asking who will start at the other linebacker and safety spots alongside those two stars. Honestly, there aren’t a lot of positions among the 22 starting spots that are realistically up for grabs this summer, so these are two of the main questions the Buccaneers need to answer in training camp.

And I don’t think they are absolutely set on either answer yet. However, I think the first cracks at those positions are going to go to SirVocea Dennis and Tykee Smith, respectively. I wouldn’t be surprised if there ends up being something of a committee approach to the linebacker spot, like the Bucs were using at the start of last season before Dennis needed shoulder surgery, though Dennis could emerge as an every down player. I would suspect the coaches will want one specific player to handle the entire safety role, though, barring injury.

Dennis was off to a nice start last season while being used primarily on obvious passing downs, taking over for K.J. Britt. Unfortunately, a shoulder issue he’s been managing since college came to a head, leading to that season-ending surgery, but the silver lining is that he heads into this season with the cleanest bill of health he’s had since being drafted in 2023. So far, so good. Head Coach Todd Bowles called “Voss” the standout of the OTAs so far, and while that’s a long way from securing a starting spot it’s obviously a very good sign. The Buccaneers’ main issue in the middle of the defense last season was coverage, and that is Dennis’s strength.

There’s no lack of competition, though. I was surprised earlier this week when Bowles called the off-ball linebacker position the deepest one on the defense right now, but he may have a point. The team is high on free agency addition Anthony Walker (a fellow Northwestern alum, so I’m high on him as well!), and he also has generally done well in coverage. Plus, he and long-time Falcon Deion Jones both sport a whole lot of NFL starting experience, which never hurts. Jones is someone to keep an eye on; he had an interception in practice the other day and Bowles has spoken highly of him as well. It also wouldn’t surprise me if undrafted rookie Nick Jackson at least earns a spot on the practice squad. He was unbelievably productive in college, and the Bucs notably have not brought back J.J. Russell, while Britt is now with the Dolphins.

As for Smith, I have to believe that the coaches are going to find some way to get him on the field as much as possible. He dealt with some injuries in his rookie season and primarily worked out of the slot, but he showed signs of being a playmaker in the Winfield mode. The Bucs need as many of those in their secondary as they can put out there, as they search for a higher turnover rate. That being said, Christian Izien showed that he could play just about anywhere in the secondary last year and very much deserves a real shot at a regular role somewhere. Kaevon Merriweather also held his own when forced into action last year and has impressed Bowles with his steady play.

How many wide receivers do you think will make the 53 man?

– Michael K. via the Buccaneers app

It seems like almost ever year the Buccaneers open training camp and we’re wondering how they’re going to get the receiving corps whittled down to even seven receivers for the regular season, let alone six. Half the time, though, by the time the real games start the cream has risen to the top and it’s pretty easy to pick a crew of six or even just five receivers.

That early-camp concern could be valid this year, though, and that’s why I believe they will end up keeping six on the active roster, plus at least two more on the practice squad. It’s still not going to be easy to get down to that number. Last season, the Buccaneers took 13 wide receivers into training camp but then kept just five to start the regular season, with three more on the practice squad. That number expanded to six when Sterling Shepard was promoted in Week Six.

This year, if there are no more additions between now and then, the Buccaneers will take 12 receivers into camp, and eight of them were on the 53-man roster at some point last season. I think it’s pretty safe to pinpoint the four guys who are virtual locks to be on the active roster to start the season: Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Jalen McMillan and first-round draft pick Emeka Egbuka.

The Buccaneers also drafted Tez Johnson in April, and while seventh-round picks are generally not locks to make the 53-man roster right away, the general consensus is that Johnson may have been something of a steal at that point in the draft. If he demonstrates the same innate ability to get open and make big plays that he did at Oregon, the team may be leery about exposing him to the waiver wire in order to get him onto the practice squad. Also, he has a very real shot at earning the punt return job, which would be another path to a spot on the 53-man roster.

Baker Mayfield obviously has a nice rapport with veteran Sterling Shepard, who definitely showed he has gas left in the tank in the second half of last season, which he mostly spent as the team’s third receiver. And it was about this time last year when the rave reviews started coming in for then-undrafted rookie Kameron Johnson. Injuries mostly robbed Johnson of his shot to translate that fast start into regular-season action, but it’s worth noting that he was one of the five receivers on the active roster to start the season, and by that point it didn’t surprise anybody.

And I haven’t even mentioned Trey Palmer, who has speed to burn and has seen a good amount of action in his first two seasons. He, too, could help himself by once again earning the punt return job. And how about Ryan Miller and Rakim Jarrett, two guys who have proved capable of holding their own in the NFL when they got their shots? Dennis Houston, who spent the second half of last season on the Bucs’ practice squad, and Garrett Greene, and undrafted rookie converting from quarterback to wideout, round out the candidates.

If I’m right about those four locks, you get to six pretty quickly with any two of Palmer, Shepard, the two Johnsons, Jarrett and Miller. I’m having a hard time choosing just two out of that group, but we have a lot of time and a lot of work to go between now and Week One. It’s certainly possible the Bucs could go as high as seven, particularly if one of the receivers is primarily a return man at the start of the season, but it’s hard to do that if you want to keep four running backs and/or four tight ends. So while seven is an option, I’ll stick with six right now and I will be shocked if the team opens the season with just five active wide receivers like it did last year.

The good news is that, with (possibly) six spots on the 53-man roster and the practice squad having expanded to a whopping 16 players, the Buccaneers should be able to find a way to keep almost all of the receivers they want to in 2025.

Which Buccaneer do you think is the most underrated in franchise history?

– David S. via the Buccaneers app

I’m not sure I can whittle it down to just one. Can I fudge it here by giving you a small handful of candidates? This topic is actually kind of fresh on my mind, with fans having recently voted on what will be the list of the top 50 players in franchise history, to be released later this summer. I worked up my own top-50 list just for the fun of it, and I know I have a couple guys rated a little higher than most ballots I’ve seen.

Of course, from the standpoint of the quality of a player’s career versus how many accolades that player won or has won, the obvious answer is Lavonte David. Easily one of the NFL’s best off-ball linebackers of the last 20 years, David has somehow only been voted into one Pro Bowl. This is a guy who was a first-team All-Pro choice – as in, considered one of the two best linebackers in the entire NFL – in 2013 and he didn’t even make the Pro Bowl that year. I know David has come to peace with that annual snub; the only reason it still bothers me is the concern that Hall of Fame voters will hold that lack of Pro Bowls against him when they’re debating his merits.

That said, I don’t think that David is one of the most underrated players in Buccaneers history because I think he has come to be seen as the franchise great he is. I personally put him seventh on my top-50 list, and I don’t any knowledgeable Buccaneers fan would rank him outside the top 10.

So here are a few players I think truly are underrated in team history: Davin Joseph, Brian Kelly and Joey Galloway. Remember that this is just one man’s opinion, and in my case I’m only going with careers that I personally witnessed. I have a feeling there are a handful of players from the franchise’s early years who don’t get as much credit as they deserve, such as Mike Washington, Cedric Brown and some others from that first great Bucs defense, but I don’t have the personal insight to make the cases for them.

Kelly played 10 seasons for the Buccaneers and one final one in Detroit and was a starter on some of the best defenses in team history. He never made a Pro Bowl, though, even when he tied for the NFL lead with eight interceptions in 2002. Remember, that was the Bucs’ first Super Bowl year, and Kelly was the top interceptor on what is widely considered one of the best defenses in NFL history. It’s probably hard to get the right amount of attention for being a very good player on a crew that featured such superstars (and eventual Hall of Famers) Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp, Ronde Barber and John Lynch…not to mention Simeon Rice, Shelton Quarles and Greg Spires.

The Bucs surprised most pundits and fellow NFL teams in 2006 when they used the 23rd overall pick on Oklahoma guard Davin Joseph when they were widely expected to take an offensive tackle in the first round. Because Joseph rarely showed up on first-round mock drafts leading up to the real thing, he was labeled in some corners as a “reach” when he did go in the opening round. Instead, he quickly emerged as one of the NFL’s best guards and was in the Pro Bowl in his third season. He would later make another Pro Bowl and go on to start 112 games for the Buccaneers despite spending all of 2012 on injured reserve. When we talk about the great offensive linemen in franchise history, I think we tend to skip right from Paul Gruber to Tristan Wirfs, but you could make the case for Joseph as the best guard in team annals. I know he was the highest ranked player at that position on my top-50 list.

Then there’s Galloway, who admittedly got and continues to get a lot more attention than Kelly or Joseph. Still, I’m not sure he gets enough credit for how good his stint in Tampa was. He had already been involved in one high-profile trade in his career, from Seattle to Dallas, before the Bucs acquired him in a straight-up trade with the Cowboys for Keyshawn Johnson in 2004. Galloway had topped 1,000 yards three times in five years in Seattle, scoring 36 touchdowns in his first four years, and while he never hit 1,000 in four years with Dallas he did lead the NFL with 19.8 yards per catch in 2003.

Galloway was slowed by injuries in his first year in Tampa but then put together three consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. He was, in fact, the first Buccaneer ever to have three straight 1,000-yard season. (Some other dude has since blown that record away; can’t quite think of his name.) As his 2003 yards-per-catch number indicated, Galloway was a big play machine. He scored 10 touchdowns in 2005 and topped 17 yards per catch in both 2006 and 2007. And he was just so much fun to watch. I think he is widely considered as a good receiver in Bucs’ history. I’ve always felt he was one of the greats.