The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hold the 14th pick in April’s NFL draft after their 7-9 finish this season. Despite their record, however, the second half of the season saw the team play some of its best football, namely from their rookie class.
Tampa Bay used the majority of their picks in last year’s draft to address their defensive needs, including taking linebacker Devin White with the fifth overall pick. While it took some time for the rookies to come into their own this season, ESPN still had them No. 7 on their rookie class rankings list, which used Pro Football Focus’ wins above replacement metric (PFF WAR) to rank all 32 teams on the value of their rookie class over expectation given.
Here’s what they said about the Bucs’ ranking:
“The Buccaneers have made the secondary a priority in recent drafts, and they have hit on some of those picks. Both Sean Murphy-Bunting and Jamel Dean showed promise as rookies, particularly Dean. He played like one of the better cornerbacks in the league over the second half of the season.”
You might be wondering why White’s name didn’t show up. They saved that for a section devoted to breaking down how each team’s top pick fared.
“The biggest strength for linebacker Devin White (No. 5 overall) coming out of LSU — his coverage ability — didn’t translate to the NFL right away. He did finish the season with his five highest PFF coverage grades of the year, which bodes well heading into 2020.”
The Bucs’ defense is on the rise, so it’ll be interesting to see if Bruce Arians and co. continue to build through the draft, or, if they’ll use their early round picks to address their offensive line issues this time around.
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