Bucs Nation
Welcome to the good, the bad, and the brilliant. In this series, we will break down what a good, bad, and brilliant season would look like for different facets of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ organization. Many of the Tampa Bay Bucs’ defensive struggles a season ago can be traced back one major flaw– pass rush. The Buccaneers’ lack of pass rush last season was an anchor for the team’s entire defense, not only putting a ceiling on their overall success, but exposing other weaknesses as well. With 2025 on the horizon, what would be a good season for Tampa’s pass rush? On the other end of the spectrum, what might leave fans disgusted? Beyond good, what would be a brilliant outing for Todd Bowles’ rushers? Introducing the good, the bad, and the brilliant: Featuring the Buccaneers’ pass rush.
The Buccaneers’ pass rush has the weird dynamic of being bad– Unreliable/unable to impact the game in high leverage moments while still racking up a lot of sacks. In 2024, the Bucs tallied 46 sacks. That number slides them in for the fifth best mark in the league– The cliché that statistics can lie becomes extremely prophetic here. Tampa Bay has an elite pass rush by the numbers, however, if anyone watched Tampa’s defense for a few third downs last season they would quickly recognize the pass rush was the farthest thing from elite.
Todd Bowles has been able to forge the stats surrounding his defense’s pass rush via the blitz. Only the Minnesota Vikings blitzed more times than the Bucs last season. Bowles’ ability or need to manifest pressure has left Tampa far too vulnerable against the pass, where they allowed 4,147 yards a year ago. Pass rush cannot come exclusively at the cost of hemorrhaging your pass coverage. A good pass rushing season in Tampa Bay is maintaining a high sack total but not needing to sacrifice their back end as frequently to accomplish it– Stay top five in sacks, but instead of being bottom-five in passing yards allowed, push that ranking into the top 10.
The simplest diagnosis of any segment in the good, the bad, and the brilliant series so far has to be the ‘Tampa Bay Buccaneers pass rush: The Bad.’ The unit is bad, has been bad, and needs to do nothing new in order to be bad. Tampa’s pass rush (specifically their edge-rushing group) has been an obvious weakness for the Buccaneers for most, if not all, of Todd Bowles’ head-coaching tenure. If absolutely nothing changes for the Bucs’ pass rush in 2025, it will be a bad season– Just more of the same in Tampa Bay.
What can the Buccaneers’ pass rushers do to be brilliant? In the offseason, Jason Licht and company made one major splash addition to their pass rush– Haason Reddick. Reddick’s tale is an odd one. An edge-rusher with...
