“I think Emeka is going to have a big impact for us,” said McCartney. “I think both corners are going to play a lot, and I think we’re excited about trying to find Walker a way to get on the field. I think it’s probably going to be third downs come early. We do feel good about that room with Yaya [Diaby], Haason [Reddick], Nelly (Anthony Nelson), Bras (Chris Braswell), so he’s going to have to really prove himself but I think he has the ability to do it. And I think the D-Line, too, [Roberts] is going to be able to get into the rotation pretty quickly, and again also on the third-down stuff. I think Elijah’s going to have a chance to help us, too.”
After the selection of Egbuka, the Buccaneers doubled down at the cornerback position on Day Two, addressing what was probably the team’s biggest depth chart concern heading into 2025. That put the pass rush on the back burner, but the Bucs had a plan and it worked out well.
“There were guys there that were in consideration in the first round when we took Emeka and there were some guys [Friday] that were in the conversation, too,” said Biehl at the end of the second day of the draft. “At the end of the day, we just follow the board. There [are] still some really good pass rushers left and we’re hoping we can pick some of those up tomorrow.”
If the Bucs prove to be right about Walker and Roberts, than that approach could be a home run. At the end of Day Three, the team even had room to make another addition on offense, nabbing Johnson, who had 169 catches and 20 touchdowns in a high-powered Oregon offense over the past two seasons. Johnson was available late in the draft because of his slight frame (5-10, 154 pounds) and a 40-yard dash time that, while good at 4.51 seconds, didn’t completely allay the worries about his size. The Buccaneers think they landed a big-time playmaker late in the proceedings.
“He doesn’t play 4.5; he plays a lot faster,” said McCartney. “There are a lot of instances when he’s the fastest player on the field. There’s multiple games when he was the best player on the field, too. He plays the game the same kind of way [as Irving], so that really excited us. At the Combine he was one of our formal interviews and he just lights up the room. I think he’ll be a great impact in the locker room, and then on the field with the ball in his hands.”
The Buccaneers have a lot of reasons to feel confident about their draft efforts over the weekend, given their recent history. It will likely take years to know if they have assembled another top-notch class, but a foundation has been set in Tampa and there is optimism about how much this year’s class can add to what is already in place.
“We have a lot of experience upstairs in our personnel staff,” said Biehl. “With experience, you take a lot of lumps and you learn from your mistakes and things like that. I just think that we’ve gotten to the point now where we all understand what we’re looking for in a player. I think there’s a lot of people out there that can evaluate talent, but it takes a little bit more to evaluate the person and the character. I think we’ve gotten to a good point as a staff where we can kind of determine what kind of guys we want in this building. Our scouts have done an unbelievable job and we’ve coached them up and they’ve [gone] out and ran with it. I think you can see the fruits of those labors on the field and in our locker room.”