The Buccaneers Fatal Flaw

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are ready to compete right now. This is one of the better rosters in the NFC and making the playoffs should be the minimum expectation. Jason Licht and the front office have done a brilliant job retooling this roster over the last few years.

Looking up and down the roster by position groups, there is depth and talent everywhere. The Bucs have one of the best offensive and defensive lines in the NFL as well as one of the best safety groups. They are also incredibly deep at wide receiver and running back.

On top of that, there is really no glaring weakness either. The worst you could point to is a corner who had a down year last season and a pair of second year players opposite him who both flashed really well last season. Most teams aren’t so lucky.

With all that said, when I look at this roster I still see one massive red flag. And if things go wrong here then it could derail their entire season. Here’s what I view as the Buccaneers fatal flaw.

Last season, the Bucs linebacker group wasn’t good. Lavonte David was on his last legs and SirVocea Dennis flopped in his first real chance at the starting job. They were so bad that now one is in the retirement home and the other is fighting to be the main backup.

Addressing this position was a high priority in the offseason. We saw the Buccaneers bring in two veterans in Christian Rozeboom and Alex Anzalone (who is expected to be one of the starters). They also drafted Josiah Trotter in the second round to compete for the other starting job.

This projects as a nice upgrade at the position. Trotter is an enforcer against the run and Anzalone is a great coverage linebacker who can do it all. Together they make a nice duo whose skill sets balance each other.

The Issue

This is where the problem is. Anzalone is expected to do a lot of the heavy lifting in pass coverage; but what if something happens to him? He is too unique of a skill set on this roster, so if Anzalone does have an injury then there is no way to fill that void. 

Trotter is much more of a box thumper than he is a coverage guy. Rozeboom is also much more of a box thumper than he is a coverage guy. And Dennis is (let me know if you’ve heard this before) more of a box thumper than he is a coverage guy.

So if anything were to happen to their only linebacker with any sort of pass coverage ability then that would leave the middle of the field and the flats extremely vulnerable. We saw this the last two years with guys like KJ Britt and Dennis seeing a lot of reps in coverage. For those of you who don’t remember, that went very poorly.

Ideally, the Bucs could bring in a depth player with coverage ability to play behind Anzalone. The sooner the front office can do this, the better off the team will be. If a move isn’t made by training camp then I’d expect that it puts this team in a tough spot. 

We know this Todd Bowles defense is complex relative to other NFL defenses. We’ve heard Anzalone comment on who much he has to learn compared to what he’s done at other stops. So it’s important that they bring someone in sooner rather than later so they have time to learn everything.

This can’t be a late in the process add. If you wait until every other team does their training camp cuts, then it puts you behind the eight ball. This needs to be a priority before training camp begins.

To be clear, I really like what the Bucs currently have in place. I love that Licht targeted one of the best coverage linebackers on the market. It was a massive need going into the offseason and they did a good job addressing it.

I just fear the team putting all their eggs in that basket and not having a back up plan. It’s great to have a top tier coverage linebacker, but this team needs at least one other guy with that skill set. If not, coverage from the linebackers could prove to be the Bucs fatal flaw this season.