{"id":753299,"date":"2026-02-15T06:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T06:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/753299\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T06:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T06:13:14","slug":"keeping-anthony-nelson-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/753299\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Anthony Nelson – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anthony Nelson holds the ball aloft after walking into the end zone with his first NFL pick-six at New Orleans.<\/p>\n

The way Joe looks at it, the Bucs need to count nickels because they are going to have to spend a bunch of Team Glazer loot on defense and maybe more than they want on a backup quarterback.<\/p>\n

(Joe can just hear the Sage of Tampa Bay sports, Ira Kaufman, yelping in delight, saying, \u201cThat\u2019s it! A backup quarterback and a running back who catches three-yard passes in the flat. That\u2019s winning football!\u201d)<\/p>\n

If the Bucs are truly serious about doing damage in the playoffs and not just winning eight games and the NFC title and being one-and-done in the playoffs, the front-seven of the Bucs needs a total makeover.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t do that with just rookies, not with the Bucs needed to fill so many holes. So that means buying players. They aren\u2019t cheap.<\/p>\n

To that end, NFL data scientist Sam Hoppen on his Substack page tossed out the idea that maybe Anthony Nelson could be a cap casualty. Per Hoppen, Nelson is due a hair south<\/a> of $2 million this fall.<\/p>\n

DE Anthony Nelson ($1.9m) \u2013 The Bucs also don\u2019t have a ton of great options, potentially leaving Nelson on the chopping block. He did have his best [season] since 2021 this year, but he\u2019s still just a rotational edge rusher.<\/p>\n

Nelson is one of these \u201ctweeners.\u201d He\u2019s not a starting edge rusher and he\u2019s not built to dominate against physical teams. Over the years, Joe has seen Nelson fully taken out of games by physical teams.<\/p>\n

But Nelson is a damn smart player and when he is not blasted by physical opponents, always seems to be in the right spot. Remember his game-saving forced fumble two years ago at Carolina? And last year he went wilding against the slimy Saints in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Would Joe try to restructure Nelson\u2019s contract? Sure, but it takes two to tango. Joe thinks Nelson is a valuable backup but maybe he could be coerced into redoing his deal?<\/p>\n

If it comes between being able to get a starting stud edge rusher (Maxx Crosby, Trey Hendrickson) or keep a quality backup (Nelson), of course Joe is going to side with the stud starter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Nelson holds the ball aloft after walking into the end zone with his first NFL pick-six at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,2599,2598,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-753299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-bucs-message-boards","10":"tag-bucs-news","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116073176995163104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}