With Wirfs still sidelined and both starting right guard Cody Mauch and starting right tackle Luke Goedeke landing on injured reserve last week, the Buccaneers started a line they never would have imagined back in June. Starting center Graham Barton played left tackle for the third game in a row with second-year man Elijah Klein making his first NFL start next to him at left guard. Ben Bredeson, usually the left guard, remained at center for the third straight game and Luke Haggard, just promoted from the practice squad, played right guard in his first career NFL action. Veteran Charlie Heck made his first start as a Buccaneer at right tackle.
Presumably, when Wirfs is at full strength, some of those position changes will be reversed. If he resumes his spot at left tackle, where he was a first-team Associated Press All-Pro last year, Barton could move back to center and Bredeson back to left guard. The Bucs could have such options at right guard as Klein, Haggard, recently-signed veteran Dan Feeney or current practice squad member Michael Jordan, who started the first two games of the season before incurring his own injury that made him unavailable in Week Three.
However, the Buccaneers, who have already had to get creative with their O-line combinations, could base this week’s lineup on just how close to 100% Wirfs is, should he make his return.
“That’ll be a big discussion depending on how he’s moving this week, depending on what side he’s moving better on,” said Bowles. “If he has a side he’s moving better on, then who played guard better… [Those are] discussions we’ve got to have in the next day or so.”
Unsurprisingly, the Buccaneers have been unable to match their per-game output from 2024 through the first three weeks of the current season, dropping from 399.6 yards per game to 322.3 and from 29.5 points per game to 24.0. Of course, the only statistic they really care about producing is more points than their opponent in each contest. So far, they’ve been able to do that in part due to the late-game heroics of quarterback Baker Mayfield, who has still managed to produce a 99.5 passer rating and a 6-0 TD-INT ratio without much of his usual supporting cast. There is obviously the promise of much more when some of those missing pieces return to game readiness, and the Buccaneers hope that proves to be the case for Godwin and Wirfs in Week Four.