{"id":825636,"date":"2026-03-21T19:31:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T19:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/825636\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T19:31:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T19:31:32","slug":"how-to-fix-the-edge-rush-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/825636\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Fix The Edge Rush – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Channel Mike Ditka?<\/p>\n

The Bucs have proven, just in this century alone, that building up the secondary in order to make up for no edge rush generally blows up in their faces.<\/p>\n

If you plan to compete in the NFL, having no edge rush is a noose around the neck. And as Joe repeats, the three times the Bucs had an edge rusher(s) that quarterbacks feared, the Bucs had an NFC title appearance (Lee Roy Selmon), won a Super Bowl (Simeon Rice) and won a second Super Bowl (Jason Pierre-Paul and Bucs sacks king Shaq Barrett).<\/p>\n

Currently, the Bucs are a sorry organization when it comes to an edge rush. Joe thinks YaYa Diaby is a nice player who hasn\u2019t demonstrated since he was a rookie that quarterbacks wet their pants when they see him across the line.<\/p>\n

This is why Matt Okada of NFL.com believes in next month\u2019s draft, the Bucs should load up on edge rushers<\/a>. And when those rookies arrive, throw them into the octagon and the lone survivor that crawls out gets a starting gig.<\/p>\n

Biggest roster hole: Pass rush
Solution: Draft several players (including at No. 15 overall)<\/p>\n

The Buccaneers\u2019 pass rush struggled to seal the deal last season, ranking 23rd in sack rate (5.8%) despite finishing third in QB pressure rate (39.1%). YaYa Diaby led the team with just seven sacks in 2025, and the last Buc to record double-digit sacks was Shaquil Barrett in 2021 (10). While they did sign former Lions DE Al-Quadin Muhammad, who logged a career-high 11 sacks last season, it was a one-year deal for a soon-to-be 31-year-old coming off an outlier year, as his next-best was a six-sack campaign in 2021. Tampa Bay needs more electricity off the edges \u2014 that\u2019s likely to be the team\u2019s primary focus in the draft. Nearly every mock in existence has the Bucs going that way at No. 15 overall, with frequent appearances by Auburn\u2019s Keldric Faulk, Texas A&M\u2019s Cashius Howell and Miami\u2019s Akheem Mesidor.<\/p>\n

This Al-Quadin Muhammad the Bucs signed is very intriguing for both good and bad reasons. He has double-digit sacks so he doesn\u2019t need Google Maps to find the quarterback. But he couldn\u2019t start one game last year. Weird.<\/p>\n

What Okada is suggesting is that AC\/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht sort of copy Mike Ditka. Remember when Ditka ran the slimy Saints, he traded his entire draft for Ricky Williams. LOL<\/p>\n

Joe doesn\u2019t think Licht will lose his mind like that but drafting two edge rushers isn\u2019t dumb. Joe gets the frustration some fans may have and just say, \u201cScrew it, bring in five edge rushers and maybe you get lucky with one of the five.\u201d<\/p>\n

Licht is hyping David Walker, but how in the world can you realistically bank on a guy who has yet to work through a padded practice?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Channel Mike Ditka? The Bucs have proven, just in this century alone, that building up the secondary in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,2599,2598,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-825636","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\/116268833006711907","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825636","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=825636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}