{"id":823297,"date":"2026-03-20T15:07:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/823297\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T15:07:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:07:19","slug":"filling-the-hole-at-cornerback-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/823297\/","title":{"rendered":"Filling The Hole At Cornerback – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Ready to start?<\/p>\n

Joe has bad Bucs news and good Bucs news.<\/p>\n

First the bad: The Bucs have a hole at cornerback they didn\u2019t need to dig.<\/p>\n

Now the good news: Folicly-challenged Billy Barnwell at BSPN believes the Bucs are one of 20 teams that can compete for a Super Bowl for the 2026 season, provided the Bucs fill this hole<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ya\u2019 just feel all warm and fuzzy now?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s missing: Cornerback. Some cornerstone pieces won\u2019t be back with the Bucs in 2026. Legendary wideout\u00a0Mike Evans\u00a0left\u00a0for the 49ers\u00a0in one of the highest-profile departures of the offseason. Linebacker\u00a0Lavonte David\u00a0saw his contract expire, and he remains available. And cornerback\u00a0Jamel Dean\u00a0signed a\u00a0three-year, $36.8 million contract\u00a0with the Steelers.<\/p>\n

Dean\u2019s absence might actually have the largest impact of those three, given that the Buccaneers are relatively stocked at wide receiver and ably\u00a0replaced\u00a0David with some much-needed coverage range from Lions linebacker\u00a0Alex Anzalone. Dean allowed a\u00a063.1 passer rating in coverage\u00a0while missing just 2.1% of his tackles. He probably deserved to be in the Pro Bowl.<\/p>\n

The Bucs have\u00a0Zyon McCollum\u00a0locked in at one starting cornerback role, and\u00a0Jacob Parrish\u00a0was solid in his rookie year operating out of the slot. Dean\u2019s departure, though, will elevate 2025 second-round pick\u00a0Benjamin Morrison\u00a0to the starting lineup. And while plenty of cornerbacks have rough rookie seasons before maturing in subsequent years, Morrison had a\u00a0very\u00a0rough\u00a0debut campaign. He allowed a 112.2 passer rating in coverage on 359 snaps, including a 72-yard touchdown to Patriots wideout\u00a0Kyle Williams. Morrison also had two pass interference penalties and a holding call declined. The Panthers repeatedly went after the rookie in their home-and-home with Tampa Bay down the stretch, and I\u2019d expect more of that if Morrison\u2019s in the starting lineup.<\/p>\n

Based on just the 2025 season alone, Benjamin Morrison is not an starter, that\u2019s all there is to it. Not yet, anyway. He did come into OTAs last year as a rookie recovering from surgery so Joe is going to give the Notre Dame grad rope here.<\/p>\n

Would Joe be shocked that Morrison, now healthy, dedicated himself to an offseason program and looks like a new player this summer when training camp starts? No.<\/p>\n

And if that is the case, great. But just based on his play he is in no way ready to be an NFL starter. Frankly, based on his play last year, Joe wonders if Zyon McCollum is a starter.<\/p>\n

But here we are with a hole on the roster where the Bucs\u2019 best corner was. It didn\u2019t have to be like this.<\/p>\n

If Todd Bowles moves Jacob Parrish to full-time outside corner, that\u2019s a smart move. Parrish was damn impressive last year and Joe would argue he was the Bucs\u2019 most consistent rookie.\u00a0Parrish sure never vanished in the second half of the season.<\/p>\n

If Bowles wants to keep Parrish at nickel corner, then there\u2019s a problem. You are then looking at McCollum and Morrison as your starting corners, possibly with no edge rush. That will be fun!<\/p>\n

So unless Bucs AC\/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht drafts or trades for a starting corner, this could be a very, very long season for the Bucs\u2019 pass defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ready to start? Joe has bad Bucs news and good Bucs news. First the bad: The Bucs have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276309,"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-823297","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\/116262131851225402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823297","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=823297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}