The Bucs aren’t done adding new coaches to their staff, but while many of the moves have understandably come on the offensive side as of late, this one is on defense. According to Greg Auman of Fox Sports, Tampa Bay has hired George Edwards to be its next outside linebackers coach. Edwards takes over for Bob Sanders, who retired after the season.
Edwards was most recently a senior defensive assistant coach with the Cowboys for the last three seasons, but has a vast background in the game of football. After playing four years at Duke from 1998 to 2001, he’s had stops with the Cowboys, Washington, Browns, Dolphins, Bills and Vikings along the way.
Edwards Has Ties To Todd Bowles
One of the first things that stands out for Edwards is that he’s been a defensive coordinator three times before with Washington, the Bills and the Vikings. It’s his experience as a linebackers coach, though, that gives him history with Bucs head coach Todd Bowles.
Edwards and Bowles overlapped as coaches on two separate occasions with the Browns and Dolphins for a period of time. In the one year Edwards was on staff as a linebackers coach for the Browns in 2004, Bowles was their secondary coach.
Not long after, Edwards was the linebackers coach in Miami from 2005 to 2009 while Bowles was the assistant head coach and secondary coach from 2008 to 2011, meaning they spent two years coaching defense together at that stop, making for three years in total.
Bucs Need More From Their OLB Room In 2023
The first task that Edwards will have is getting the most out of up-and-coming outside linebacker Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. It’s a huge year for JTS going into his third season. He’s garnered four sacks each year for a career total of eight, but has left plenty on the table.
Tryon-Shoyinka is a bit of a polarizing figure amongst Bucs fans. Some think he’s been a bust as a first-round pick, while others believe he’s right on track and ready to break out. It didn’t help his case last season that after Shaq Barrett was lost for the year with an Achilles injury, it was Anthony Nelson who became the team’s most productive outside linebacker.
Barrett’s situation is a whole other issue. He tore his Achilles during Week 8 and isn’t expected to be back until the start of the 2023 regular season. This is a serious injury that takes time to recover from, so no one really knows what kind of performance the Bucs can get from him. He’ll also be 30 years old when he returns to game action, adding another wrinkle into the question.
With Anthony Nelson and Carl Nassib as pending free agents, Edwards doesn’t totally know who he’s going to be coaching just yet after Tryon-Shoyinka and Barrett. Odds are that the Bucs will bring in another veteran if they can’t re-sign Nelson or Nassib, and it’s possible they’ll select an edge rusher in this year’s NFL Draft.
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