Every Wednesday morning I’ll cowl 4 areas as they apply to Tampa Bay: 1. a brief movie breakdown, 2. a finance angle, 3. a glance ahead at what’s to return, and 4. a little bit of enjoyable.
Movie: Al-Quadin Muhammad’s 2025 Sacks
Al-Quadin Muhammad arrives in Tampa Bay off a profession 12 months in Detroit the place he had 11 sacks, 53 pressures, 9 tackles for loss – all on roughly 41 p.c of Detroit’s defensive snaps. On paper it’s the most efficient cross rush season of his profession by a large margin, and it’s honest to ask how a participant who had by no means topped six sacks in a season all of the sudden posted 11 of them at age 30.
Sacks are available in all sizes and shapes. Some are clear wins in one-on-one conditions. Others are scheme generated. Nonetheless others are of the cleanup selection.
It’s a giant motive why sacks are notoriously unreliable predictors of … nicely … future sacks.
However they will nonetheless give us an concept of how a participant tries to win. Muhammad made it to the passer earlier than he acquired the ball out a complete of 12 instances in 2025 – 10 solo sacks and two half-credits. I went again to look at all 12 to see how typically he had clear wins, how typically he cleaned up, and in what methods he tried to win.
What these 12 performs present is a high-motor participant who will benefit from alternatives different gamers give him. If a quarterback needs to climb, leak, roll or in any other case scramble, you may guess that AQM can be able to make him pay for that call. Virtually each one in all his sacks got here very late within the rep. That’s backed up by his 4.94 second time to sack common for the season.
That makes him the proper complement to havoc creators Yaya Diaby and particularly rookie Rueben Bain Jr. I’d guess that Muhammad will get at the least two sacks this 12 months by advantage of cleansing up chaos created by the 2 edge rushers up the depth chart from him.
Bucs OLB Al-Quadin Muhammad – Picture by: IMAGN Photographs – Junfu Han
Past the cleanups, Muhammad used quite a lot of methods to beat tackles final 12 months. He paired a bull rush with an arm-over towards Braxton Jones, dislodged Jaylon Moore with a membership/shove, used a protracted arm to maintain Ronnie Stanley from discovering a grip, compelled Charlie Heck to brief his cross set earlier than dipping beneath him, hit Terrance Steele with a chop-rip and got here again to the speed-to-power towards Justin Skule. It’s a varied-enough bag with a variety of effectiveness. On a number of reps he confirmed strong bend alongside a few of these different strategies.
Muhammad’s finest trait is his hand utilization. He has pop to his mitts and makes use of them to interrupt tackles arms and preserve them disconnected. His rip is clear and is perhaps his finest software. He has energy in his bull rush, but it surely loses its effectiveness as a result of he isn’t terribly fast off the snap. Out of these 12 reps just one featured a fast snap leap from Muhammad. That was when he beat Jaylon Moore of Kansas Metropolis.
Essentially the most attention-grabbing sack of your complete bunch to me was his half sack towards Lamar Jackson. That featured him lined up as a 3-technique together with his hand within the filth. On a six-man rush Muhammad looped two gaps over and bent round Tyler Linderbaum earlier than combining with Alex Anzalone to search out a scrambling Jackson within the backfield. He ought to count on for use extra like that in Todd Bowles’ stunt-heavy stress protection.
All of this makes for an intriguing situational cross rusher. Muhammad is the modern-day renaissance cross rusher. He has an understanding of nearly every thing you’d need a designated cross rusher to do, however a mastery of none. However when paired together with his relentlessness it’s sufficient to be the proper OLB3 or OLB4 on the depth chart on a low threat, one-year deal.
Here’s a reduce up off all 12 performs.
Finance: Tykee Smith’s Early Valuation
After a powerful rookie season as a slot nook, Tykee Smith moved to top-side security function in 2025 and recorded 94 tackles, 23 defensive stops, six passes defensed and one interception. A lot of his stats went up, however his capacity in protection was a curler coaster with loads of downs to just some ups.
Taking a look at simply the 2 seasons in isolation, Smith’s finest path to maximizing his future payday would name for a return to the slot. However that doesn’t seem like his path ahead with the Bucs.
Smith’s archetype at this level in his profession is a half-field/field security with slot versatility and a protection limitation in house. These gamers can get strong mid-tier offers, however until they’re dynamic playmakers like Los Angeles’ Derwin James or Baltimore’s Kyle Hamilton, they hardly ever break the financial institution.
I discovered three gamers who signed contracts this offseason who I feel bracket Smith’s archetype and manufacturing nicely. They’re Cincinnati’s Bryan Cook dinner, Dallas’ Jalen Thompson and Kansas Metropolis’s Alohi Gilman.
Cook dinner represents the perfect case situation for Smith. A helpful, however restricted participant who maximizes his versatility. Gilman is the ground as somebody who must be schemed round. Smith has a better upside than Gilman, even when his 2025 reveals a weaker protection participant. He’s able to extra.
Thompson is the fiftieth percentile end result, and paradoxically, the man who continues to be taking part in probably the most slot snaps – the place Smith is at his finest. This places Smith’s valuation proper round Thompson’s three-year, $33 million deal. We’ll see if he can improve his value with a powerful 2026 season earlier than his contract 12 months in 2027.
Bucs SS Tykee Smith – Picture by: Cliff Welch/PR
Forecast: Emeka Egbuka’s 2026 Stat Line
Projecting any participant’s stats from one 12 months to the following is a tough proposition, for positive. Fantasy soccer analysts have constructed a complete cottage trade out of it. However it’s the summer time and there’s no hurt in taking a stab at it.
It’s straightforward to suppose that Emeka Egbuka will high 1,000 yards in 2026. He got here awfully near doing it final 12 months, in what was in the end a really up-and-down, however nonetheless extraordinarily promising, rookie season. Somewhat than undertaking a full season complete, which assumes full well being, I’m going to place collectively the framework for per sport manufacturing. From there you may extrapolate over nevertheless many video games you want.
Final 12 months Egbuka averaged 7.5 targets, 3.7 catches, 55.2 yards, and 0.35 touchdowns per sport in 17 video games.
Bucs WR Emeka Egbuka – Picture by: Cliff Welch/PR
A lot has modified since 2025. Mike Evans is gone. However Chris Godwin Jr. is more healthy than he was this time final 12 months, and Jalen McMillan has seemingly totally recovered from the neck damage he suffered within the preseason final 12 months.
The Bucs additionally added Ted Hurst within the third spherical of the 2026 NFL Draft. All that’s to say there’s a respectable probability Egbuka turns into the primary goal for Baker Mayfield this 12 months, changing Evans. However there’s simply as probably an opportunity that, with higher well being throughout your complete room, his goal share doesn’t really improve from 2025, when he went massive swaths of the season with out the three different receivers who had been alleged to spherical out the highest 4.
That’s the reason I’ve him down for comparable routes and targets in his sophomore season, with improved catch effectivity and a decreased yards per reception. The per sport framework comes out to 32.0 routes, 7.5 targets, 4.5 catches, 58.7 yards, and 0.35 touchdowns, at 13.0 yards per catch and 1.83 yards per route run. These final two are charges, so that they maintain regular regardless of what number of video games you run it over. The counting stats are the place the pattern measurement does its work.
Will any of this maintain up? In all probability to not the decimal. Well being, function, and Baker Mayfield’s distribution will all have their say, and a receiver room that stays entire may preserve his goal share proper the place it was.
The honest expectation is that his effectivity improves, particularly his reliability and his catch charge, however a few of that acquire will get offset by a dip in explosive play charge as his common depth of goal settles and the chunk performs come rather less typically. However the framework holds even when the video games performed don’t. Per sport, Egbuka needs to be a extra environment friendly, extra dependable model of the receiver we noticed flash final September. Decide your variety of video games and do the maths.
Enjoyable Fourth Down: Bucs Gamers As Pop Tradition Characters
Final week I wrote three of probably the most enjoyable paragraphs I’ve ever written in my total profession when describing Oregon defensive sort out A’Mauri Washington as a prospect.
“My finest approach at describing who he’s versus who he will be is Robert Doback’s clarification of his childhood within the phenomenal comedy, Step Brothers.
“When I was a kid, when I was a little boy, I always wanted to be a dinosaur. I wanted to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex more than anything in the world. I made my arms short and I roamed the backyard, I chased the neighborhood cats, I growled and I roared. Everybody knew me and was afraid of me. And one day my dad said, ‘Bobby, you are 17. It’s time to throw childish things aside,’ and I said, ‘Okay, Pop.’ But he didn’t really say that, he said, ‘Stop being a f*cking dinosaur and get a job.’”
Washington’s present playstyle – the place he tries to win with pace and agility, beating blockers laterally – is his Tyrannosaurus Rex. However it’s time he throws away infantile issues, decrease his pad degree and begin bullying opponents. That’s how he’s going to get an NFL job.”
That prompted me to consider present Bucs gamers and any popular culture comps that felt pure. I discovered 4 that felt proper.
Reuben Bain Jr. as Bane from the Darkish Knight Rises
The identify does many of the work, positive. However watch him break offensive tackles like Bane broke Batman. Unrelenting. Unyielding. The stroll previous the mirror on draft night time stated every thing that wanted to be stated. All enterprise. No distractions.
The remainder of us adopted the darkness. He was born in it.
Luke Goedeke as Louis Litt from Fits
Assume again to season one Louis Litt from the sequence Fits. The epitome of an antagonist. You couldn’t stand him. Completely no endearing qualities to be discovered. Then one thing occurs throughout the run of the present. The armor comes off, the guts reveals, and by the tip he’s the character you’d run by means of a wall for.
Luke Goedeke ran that precise arc with the Bucs. As a rookie in 2022 he was the thorn in each Bucs fan’s aspect. A guard who struggled so badly he performed his approach onto the bench. What got here after was almost as poetic as Litt’s flip. He kicked out to proper sort out, he discovered himself, and he hardened into among the best tackles in all of soccer.
Identical villain to hero pipeline. Fewer mud baths.
Bucky Irving as Joey from Blossom
This one wants a little bit extra setup, particularly for those who got here up after the Clinton administration. Within the TV present Blossom, Joey Lawrence performed the lovable Russo brother whose total character was summed up in a single phrase he typically repeated – Whoa!
That phrase is what all of us discover ourselves exclaiming each time Bucky Irving makes a defender miss. Linebacker has him useless to rights within the gap? Miss. “Whoa!” An athletic nook/security duo has him cornered on the edge. Poof! He’s gone! “Whoa!” As he breaks ankle after ankle after ankle all we’re left saying is “Whoa!”
That’s Joey Russo to a “t.”
Bucs RB Bucky Irving – Cliff Welch/PR
Antoine Winfield Jr. as Huey Freeman from Boondocks
Each nice protection wants one man who already is aware of what’s coming. Huey Freeman from Boondocks is the one within the room who has learn three extra books than everybody else and is often proper. He’s calm whereas the chaos spins round him. That’s Antoine Winfield Jr. on a soccer area. He diagnoses the play earlier than the snap, he’s at all times a half second early to the spot, and he does it with out a wasted movement or a wasted phrase.
The remainder of the protection reacts. Winfield anticipates. Quietly the neatest man on the grass.
