The Buccaneers followed those two picks with their first addition to the offense, nabbing Georgia State wideout Ted Hurst in the third round after that small trade down mentioned above. Hurst had one of the most intriguing size\/speed combinations in the draft, as he stands 6-4 and 210 pounds and ran a 4.42-second 40-yard dash at the Combine. Naturally, this pick will be connected with the departure of future Hall of Famer Mike Evans in free agency in March, but the Bucs obviously are not expecting any newcomer to replace the greatest receiver in franchise history. That said, the Bucs did feel the need to add that type of player to their pass-catching corps.<\/p>\n
“He is a big guy that’s 6’4, 210 and runs in the 4.4’s,” said Biehl. “That’s intriguing to us. Again, the downfield stuff, he’s got really good ball skills too. Not only can he get over the top and beat guys deep, but if it is contested, he has the ability to make those catches. He’s got a lot of traits that we look for at the X position, which is what Mike played, and we’ll just see how it all plays out.”<\/p>\n
That pick rounded out the second night of the draft but the Buccaneers opened Day Three with a player they thought might have been off the board in the first three rounds. Going back to the Miami Hurricanes defense that had already yielded the team Bain, the Bucs eagerly snatched up versatile defensive back Keionte Scott. Scott thrived in a nickel role for the national championship runners-up last season but has previously played on the outside and might even be able to play safety.<\/p>\n
The Bucs needed cornerback help, more, however, and feel that the addition of Scott opens up more options for the secondary when he is added to the trio of Zyon McCollum, Jacob Parrish and Benjamin Morrison.<\/p>\n
“One of the things we all talked about is that we need to add another body to that corner room that we can rely on,” said McCartney. “Pretty thin back there, admittedly. Adding him now brings back the versatility that Parrish can play nickel, Parrish can play outside, BMo takes another step this year on the outside and we feel better about the room having a guy that can play multiple spots.”<\/p>\n
The Bucs had two fifth-round picks after the trade with Green Bay and used the first one on Clemson defensive tackle DeMonte Capehart. Capehart’s availability on Day Three probably was the product of his relatively low statistical production in college, but the Bucs saw a prospect who has the potential to out-produce those numbers at the next level. The Bucs have clearly placed an emphasis on getting more stout and explosive in their defensive front with the free agency additions of A’Shawn Robinson and Rakeem Nu\u00f1ez-Roches following last year’s drafting of Elijah Simmons.<\/p>\n
“He’s an explosive player,” said McCartney of Capehart. “You see glimpses of it. You see him work out and he’s a guy that also makes you go back and watch [game tape]. You see his ability to uncoil his hips, he’s got really long arms, he’s explosive. His straight-ahead power is similar to A’Shawn and Vita [Vea]; he’s going to be able to walk you back in the pocket.”<\/p>\n
The Bucs’ four defensive picks in the 2026 draft play four different positions and have very different profiles. However, it’s possible that all four will aid in the Bucs’ distinct effort to put more pressure on opposing quarterbacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buccaneers followed those two picks with their first addition to the offense, nabbing Georgia State wideout Ted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[4955,211,198,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-874672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-buccaneers","10":"tag-featured","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\/116467929146451863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874672","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=874672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}