Mike Mayock Is Depressing Me

NFL Total Access did their “State of the Franchise” piece yesterday on the Buccaneers, and Mike Mayock’s assessment of the team made me realize something that I hadn’t quite put together yet. I think my brain was protecting me from the truth. Much more of this and I’ll wind up like Sybil or Herschel Walker.

I’m a little bit puzzled about the direction they’re headed. Offensively, they were horrible last year. They’ve got a good young quarterback, but they haven’t added anything except a pedestrian wide receiver from the Eagles, Reggie Brown. They lost their wide receiver yesterday, Antonio Bryant. Defensively they’ve added nobody. The only good thing they do is special teams — they had six blocks last year, Rich Bisaccia is one of the best — and they’re killing their special teams unit. They’re letting all their guys go.

He’s exactly right about the special teams thing. In letting Will Allen, Byron Storer, Torrie Cox and Brian Clark walk away, the Bucs removed four of their special teams stars. Hell, Allen was the special teams captain. Add Josh Bidwell to that and they’ve cut a huge hole in a unit that ranked near the top of every meaningful special teams category. They’ll replenish some of them with the rookies they sign, but will they be as good as the ones they let go? Special teams was the only reason some of those guys were employed as long as they were.; they were that good. Seriously, Cox was with the Bucs for six years and they stuck with him through all kinds of injuries because he was that good of a gunner.

Here’s the deal, you’ve got three of the first 42 picks: 3, 35 and 42. Let’s assume they don’t miss at three; they get one of those defensive tackles, they’re excited. They better get starters at 35 and 42 because that’s the key for this franchise right now.

Okay, well, that’s no big revelation. Any team drafting near the top needs to pick starters with their first few picks. But they’d better look at the special teams value of some of their lower picks and find a couple fast guys who can tackle because their best remaining special teams guys are potentially starters (Geno Hayes, Quincy Black, Earnest Graham) and the coaches aren’t going to want them hurling their bodies fifty yards down field like heat-seeking missiles. Not only do the Bucs have to hit on their top picks, they really need to make an impact with all of them, especially since they’ve been nearly silent in free agency. That’s a lot of pressure.