Bucs Nation
Is edge defender actually an offseason need for the Buccaneers?
For the past few seasons, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ defense has fought through the challenge of operating without a truly dominant edge defender. Tampa hasn’t had a pass-rusher capable of single-handedly taking over games since the heydays of Shaq Barrett.
Many fans may be heading into the 2025 offseason expecting Jason Licht to invest heavily in the position group, seeing that Tampa Bay’s defense is forced to send extra defenders at opposing quarterbacks in order to generate any consistent pressure and that excessive blitzing has a tendency to leave the team’s coverage on the back-end exposed— Despite being tied for sixth in sacks, the 2024 Tampa Bay Bucs ranked near the bottom of the league in both completion percentage and pass yards allowed.
Perhaps hearing all the rumors swirling around the Buccaneers addressing the position group in the coming months, Yaya Diaby took to social media to express his thoughts or maybe calm the nerves of fans stressing over their team lacking premium talent, saying on ‘X’, “I can’t wait to prove all the doubters wrong!! Trust and believe I am an elite pass rusher.”
Diaby, who was the team’s leader in sacks during his rookie season (2023) with 7.5, had just 4.5 during his sophomore campaign— A three-sack step backwards. Of course statistics don’t ever tell the full story and that is part of what Diaby is eluding to in his tweet, “(FYI watch film)”.
There is a chance that Diaby is being a slight exaggerative, using the clickbait-ey term of ‘elite’ to get his point across and simply means to say he believes that he is in line for a breakout season, where he regains a form closer to the level Buccaneers’ fans saw from him during his rookie season— Possibly, even taking a step forward from the promising start his career kicked off with, leaving last season as an outlier rather than the norm.
No matter the intention of the tweet, or the difference between the story the stats tell and what the film shows, there are not many elite edge-rushers who play a full slate of games in back-to-back seasons and amass just 12 sacks. Diaby’s declarations aside, Tampa Bay would be wise to invest in their pass-rush this offseason. Should Diaby return to his rookie-form or develop into an elite player that would just be gravy on top.
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