Bucs Defensive Studs And Duds: 8/25

The Bucs made their way up north in the state of Florida to Jacksonville for the first of two joint practices with the Jaguars at their facility. Tampa Bay admitted that the energy wasn’t there overall as they got back to the swing of things in practice, leading to a lackluster performance on Tuesday.

Pewter Report’s Matt Matera, Scott Reynolds, Bailey Adams, Adam Slivon and Kat Buetel were in attendance for the practice today. With the teams practicing on different fields, Slivon took on the role of studs and duds on offense while Matera handled the defensive side.

Bucs Defensive Studs From Day 16 Of Training Camp

DT Calijah Kancey

While many things weren’t going right for Tampa Bay’s defense in the beginning of camp on Tuesday, Calijah Kancey felt like the only player Bucs defensive player that had his motor going. Kancey recorded two sacks in 11-on-11 against the Jaguars starting offensive line and with Trevor Lawrence at quarterback. In his first sack, Kancey shot the gap immediately as the ball was snapped, quickly moving past the lineman to stop the play. On the second sack, he won with his hands, using it for an instantaneous move to get into the backfield.

Kancey has had a quiet camp thus far. Overall the main goal for him is to just be healthy since he’s a gamer when it matters most. But to see him get into the mix and have one of his better days of practice as we get closer to the regular season is a great sign of things to come. Maybe the return of Vita Vea for a handful of plays has sparked his interest.

OLB Yaya Diaby

Another player that was slower to begin camp, Diaby has really poured it on the last couple of days. On Tuesday, Diaby showed why he’s an all around player at the outside linebacker position. Diaby recorded a sack on Trevor Lawrence with the help of an Alex Aznalone blitz. Later on he had a tackle for loss at the line of scrimmage, which he takes a lot of pride in with stopping the run. He also had a pass breakup deflecting a pass at the line of scrimmage, putting in work in all areas of the game.

ILB Josiah Trotter 

With SirVocea Dennis still out, Trotter is getting work with the starters and has absolutely thrived at inside linebacker. Trotter did what he does best in this practice and that’s identifying the run, slipping through a potential blocker and making a hard hit at the line scrimmage. Trotter made a couple of tackles at the line of scrimmage and looked pretty comfortable in the Bucs’ defense. Head coach Todd Bowles described Trotter’s ability to beat blockers as something that can’t be coached. The intangibles are already showing for Trotter. When he has more experience under his belt he has the chance to be great.

OLB Anthony Nelson

The savvy veteran Nelson is still finding ways to make plays and contribute to this team. He received more playing time on Tuesday as the Bucs rotated their outside linebackers. He recorded at least one sack on the afternoon and came close to another. If Nelson is the fifth player on Tampa Bay’s depth chart, they will have exceptional depth.

DT Rakeem Nunez-Roches

Besides the aforementioned Kancey, it was Nunez-Roches, better known as “Nacho” who was the second best defensive tackle during the day. With Vita Vea slowly working his way back to camp, Nacho is getting more reps from it. He had two tackles in the run game right at the line of scrimmage. Each time after he screamed and celebrated the occasion. He’s an immediate fire starter to a team that needed it today.

Bucs Defensive Duds From Day 16 Of Training Camp

CB Zyon McCollum 

There really wasn’t a worse way to begin 11-on-11s than McCollum allowing a deep ball bomb of a touchdown to Jaguars receiver Brian Thomas Jr. on the first play. Thomas just got behind McCollum on the play and Lawrence hit him right on the button. It’s been only a couple of days since McCollum has returned, but he has allowed too many down field plays recently. McCollum has had a good camp overall, but he’s slowed down recently. It’s hard to say that McCollum should be CB1 when Jacob Parrish has played so well on top of it.

S Antoine Winfield Jr. 

During 11-on-11 red zone, Winfield got caught peaking into the backfield just a little bit too much on a play action play by the Jaguars. This allowed Lawrence to find wide receiver Parker Washington in the end zone for the touchdown with Winfield in coverage and lagging behind him. Winfield is viewed as an All-Pro caliber player, so any mistakes he makes gets noticed more than others.

DT DeMonte Capehart

There wasn’t as many fights in this joint practice as there was with the Bucs and Jets two weeks ago. With that said Capehart was a main culprit as he started swinging on Jaguars offensive lineman Wyatt Milum. It seemed to be out of frustration as the Bucs were getting worked in this drill and Capeheart wasn’t happy about it. He threw several punches and eventually his helmet was ripped off. It’s one thing for a veteran player to get in a scuffle throwing hands, but when a fifth round draft pick rookie is instigating, it sends a bad precedent. Next time it could happen in a game and cost the Bucs field position.

Bucs Run Defense

Part of Capehart’s frustrations came from Jacksonville’s ability to run on the Bucs. Whether it was Bhayshul Tuten or DeeJay Dallas they were gaining big runs against Tampa Bay. Tuten was hitting it up the middle while Dallas was more to the outside. Tuten had at least two runs of 15-20 yards, while Dallas rushed over 30 yards for a score later in practice. It was very uncharacteristic of the whole unit.

Bucs Pass Coverage 

In full transparency, the Bucs were awful defending the pass today. If not for a couple of would be sacks by the defensive line, it would have been a complete field day for the Jaguars and it was still close to it. The Jags had their way against the Bucs secondary, and it didn’t matter if it was first, second or third string. They allowed big throws over the middle and to the sideline without much restraint from the defense.

Only Ayden Garnes showed up in the secondary while Benjamin Morrison made one play after allowing a catch and then knocking the ball out last second before getting beat. McCollum and Winfield individually were on this list, but really every player in the secondary could’ve been added to it.