A pass-rushing defensive lineman out of the University of Miami. A tackling machine at linebacker. That\u2019s a strong starting point when you\u2019re talking about a pair of 21-year-old building blocks for the Bucs.<\/p>\n
But slow down on the gold jacket talk. Rueben Bain Jr. isn\u2019t Warren Sapp, nor will Josiah Trotter be compared to Derrick Brooks. You don\u2019t just casually throw around the names of first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Fame players.<\/p>\n
But the Bucs were intentional in the draft. They targeted disruption up front and production behind it. They valued pressure in the trenches and tackles in space.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we realized at the top of the second round there was a chance to be able to do that,\u201d assistant general manager Rob McCartney said at the conclusion of the draft April 25. \u201cWe like the synergy of having a young edge rusher and a young (middle linebacker) to come in and become the identity of our defense, that\u2019s really, you know, two of the more important spots on defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re really excited to have that youth. You know it\u2019s a year-to-year league, and it\u2019s hard to look past those two and three years sometimes. But to be able to say, \u2018Hey, can they have these guys \u2014 I think (general manager) Jason (Licht) said it when (Bain) was on the phone, \u2018What are you doing for the next five to 10 years?\u2019 So hopefully we\u2019re able to see that through with all of them being in Tampa.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine the Bucs\u2019 draft going much better than it did this year.<\/p>\n
They not only filled primary needs at edge rusher, inside linebacker, X receiver, cornerback, interior defensive lineman, tight end and offensive guard, but all of those players arrive carrying their own shoulder chips.<\/p>\n
The Bucs also talked about wanting to get bigger, particularly on defense.<\/p>\n
Trotter is 6 feet 2 and nearly 240 pounds, considerably larger than some of the team\u2019s prototypical linebackers. Bain is 6-3, 275 pounds and doesn\u2019t rely more on speed than power.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Trotter is) an old-school, downhill linebacker that can play the run, which is hard to find nowadays,\u201d Bucs vice president of player personnel Mike Biehl said. \u201cWith the college game the way it has went, it\u2019s all lateral and everybody is looking for the speed stuff. To us, he has enough speed to play in our league. Now, if you said he\u2019s a better run defender than pass defender? I would say, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s probably fair.\u2019 But we think he has the capability to be a three-down linebacker.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bain will force opposing offenses to account for him and not be able to slide all their protection to outside linebacker Yaya Diaby.<\/p>\n
That should create more rush opportunities after the Bucs produced only 37 sacks last season, the fewest since Todd Bowles arrived in Tampa Bay as defensive coordinator in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when you add a player like Rueben and he does what we think he can do, it opens a lot of things up,\u201d Licht said. \u201cIt makes everyone along the defensive line better when you can have two edge presences. The line, the protections don\u2019t slide as much; you have to decide where to slide them and it opens things up.<\/p>\n
\u201cPotentially now, with David Walker, we have an arsenal right now that we feel good is a very good rotation. With (Al-Quadin Muhammad) and we still have Nelly (Anthony Nelson) and all that. You can\u2019t have too many. I say that every year, but then it doesn\u2019t work out that we can draft one at a premium. But now, we did. Hopefully, we can reap the rewards here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the edgy attitude the Bucs were trying to identify in each and every draft selection. No more Mr. Nice Guy. That\u2019s always been a desired trait in draft picks but Licht, McCartney and their staff placed an even higher priority on it this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter we drafted Trotter, we were sitting up there talking about teams running the ball against us,\u201d McCartney said. \u201cJust the physicality with (free agent) A\u2019Shawn (Robinson), having Rueben, having Trotter, so just some of the things that may limit opposing offenses to be able to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen just throughout the whole draft, just the energy and the pride all these guys really show on the field. \u2026 If you watch them, you should be able to feel their energy, feel their passion for the game. I think that\u2019s something we always try to knock out of the park and I feel pretty good about that with this class.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pass-rushing defensive lineman out of the University of Miami. A tackling machine at linebacker. That\u2019s a strong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,7,6,113513,9,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":["post-880313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-buccaneers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabaybuccaneers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116504167943953614","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880313","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=880313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}