Bucs Place Offensive Starter On Injured Reserve

The Bucs have seen a cast of characters at many positions on the line. Presumably Michael Jordan, who filled in for Bredeson in Sunday’s game, will continue at left guard with Dan Feeney at right guard. They also have the option of going to Luke Haggard or Elijah Klein, who each started earlier in the season. The Bucs also had Charlie Heck start games at tackle and Ben Chukwuma got his first NFL start for Wirfs last game, so everything’s on the table.

Bucs Inside Linebackers Could Be Tested

Pertaining to the inside linebacker position, Nick Jackson was called up for two reasons. One of them being that they had an open roster spot, and the other being that there’s a chance that SirVocea Dennis can’t go for Tampa Bay’s Thursday night game at home against the Atlanta Falcons. Dennis has a hip injury and was a DNP on Monday’s injury report and wasn’t seen at Tuesday’s practice.

Jackson was an undrafted free agent out of Iowa that had a great training camp, surprising a lot of people. He didn’t make the team out of camp, but was signed to the practice squad. The Bucs elected for linebacker John Bullock over Jackson  on the active roster because Bullock brought a little more on special teams, but Jackson is the better inside linebacker.

With Dennis in doubt for Thursday, Deion Jones would move into a starting role next to inside linebacker. That puts Bullock and Jackson as the next two up and there’s a chance that they’d go with Jackson first.

Can JPP Help The Bucs?

It feels like a bit of a nostalgia act with the Bucs signing Jason Pierre-Paul to the practice squad after he hasn’t played in two seasons. But Tampa Bay is in dire straits at the position and need any help they can get. JPP won’t be anywhere near the player he was in his first run with the Bucs and he may not have anything left to give on the field,  but in the locker room he can be a fire starter and the the motivating factor that the team is looking for.

If Pierre-Paul can push anyone in that outside linebacker room to play better, it’ll be worth it. This isn’t the exact move that Bucs fans expected when they wanted Jason Licht to bring in another pass rusher, but this is how they’re going about it. There just aren’t many other options or answers remaining out there to help this team.