State Of The Roster
February 12th, 2026
Aging roster.
Unless a team has arguably the best coach in NFL history and finds ways to keep salaries down and squeeze the most out of everyone on the field, sooner or later a team will tumble from its former championship ways.
Joe’s good friend and longtime NFL writer and humorist Mike Tanier seems to get whiff that the Bucs are about to pay the piper. The men who were the backbone of the Bucs’ Super Bowl season in 2020 are either gone, retired or looking at condos in The Villages.
The Bucs simply are not your Bucco Bruce Arians’ Bucs and what they showed last year could be the norm around these parts until the roster is fully restocked, Tanier typed on his Substack, “Too Deep Zone.”
You could see the Bucs veterans aging in real time as the season wore on. Lavonte David is crispy. Mike Evans’ fuel light is blinking. Chris Godwin can’t stay healthy. Not everyone is ready for retirement, but the Bucs nucleus as a whole has passed its peak.
Emeka Egbuka and Bucky Irving are outstanding young players. The Bucs could use at least a half dozen more of them.
Joe would argue the Bucs need four of that half-dozen on the defense.
And if the Bucs are going to let Jamel Dean out the door, that’s another hole to fill. Unless Bucs coach Todd Bowles wants to move Jacob Parrish to full-time corner to replace Dean (which would be a solid move), Joe doesn’t see Dean’s replacement on the roster.
At least, not a viable replacement.