What Players Have the Most Riding on the 2025 Season for the Buccaneers?

For the 2025 season, there are a lot of Buccaneers’ players in a make or break situation. Either they have to prove they deserve a contract extension, or deserve a second contract period. We have a bunch of guys on expiring deals from the 2022 draft for example.

Now, Luke Goedeke is almost assuredly getting extended unless something happens that can’t be predicted, but there are plenty of question marks all around this team.

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Let’s start with another guy from that draft. Zyon McCollum. Now it seems like a lot of people are assuming the Bucs will lock him up long-term. However, I think he needs slightly more consistency before the team can feel fully confident in his abilities. He started last season insanely hot, but cooled off down the stretch. If he can play like he did for the first five weeks, then he’s an easy contract the Bucs will hand out. But if he stutters again, I’m not sure the team will give him anything more than a short term contract.

And keeping with the secondary, everyone’s favorite whipping boy in Jamel Dean is playing for his continued future on this team. At least, I think so. Bucs fans exaggerate how bad he is, but he still hasn’t played like a number one corner. Which he was paid to do (I remember when everyone thought that the Bucs got a discount). It’s not just health that’s an issue, it’s everything else. Lack of picks, lack of good decisions, and all around below average coverage. Really the only thing that he’s been even average at is tackling. 2026 would be the out year for the deal, so he has to make the most of this season if he wants to stick around.

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On offense, I think the biggest question mark is what to do with Rachaad White. It’s obvious now he is the number 2 back on this team. And with his deal coming up next year, it doesn’t really make sense to pay a guy, even a small contract to be the back-up running back when it’s relatively easy to find a guy in the draft to take over the role. Especially when there is already a pretty solid stable of ball carriers. However, that is not to say Rachaad provides nothing. Easily his biggest asset over everyone else is his pass protection. While that is not the primary purpose of a running back, it is very useful. And neither Bucky nor Sean Tucker are particularly good at it. A lot of backs aren’t, and that may be difficult to replace. Also he is still a versatile weapon, although the gap between his receiving ability and everyone else’s isn’t that wide.

Though it’s weird to say about a guy on a one year deal, Haason Reddick is arguably in a make or break year. Although that’s more to do with him as a player than him as a player on the Bucs if that makes sense. Reddick didn’t just come off a bad year statistically, but his effort was called into play. And also because people couldn’t tell if he was being greedy or if the Jets were incompetent in how they handled his deal. Regardless, he likely wants to go back to the dominance he once had. He’s going to turn 31 soon, so this may be his last chance to get a good contract. If he plays well for the Bucs, it might very well be here.

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There are definitely guys I missed (again we have a full draft class coming up needing to get paid potentially), but these I found to be the most interesting. Hopefully that hunger for a new deal translates into some good results. That does sometimes happen when a player knows they’re up against a wall (I think Reddick will be the biggest example of that). For the team’s sake, hopefully all these guys ball out.