Buccaneers: Noah Spence and his budding greatness part I
Buccaneers defensive end Noah Spence is well on his way to becoming an elite pass rusher.
Jason Licht was giddy with excitement when he was able to select Noah Spence in the second round of the 2016 draft for his Buccaneers. He had a first round grade on him, so getting him in the second round was equal to a steal. Here was a guy the Bucs coveted to lead the pass rush and make Gerald McCoy even better. He is there to lead the Bucs into the future on defense.
As a rookie, he showed some real signs. He posted 5.5 sacks, good for fifth in the league among rookies. Was he dominant right away? No, but the Bucs defense as a whole took time to come into its own. It took the team approximately eight games for the Mike Smith concepts to become ingrained and that is when the team took off. However, even before that, Spence began to flash his skills, as early as week two.
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The hype for Spence is starting to grow, ladies and gentlemen. Recently, Pete Prisco of CBS Sports wrote that Spence is ready to become the next elite pass rusher in the NFL. Between losing weight and straightening himself out, he is a new man, says Prisco. He believes that Spence can make the jump to 15 sacks, similar to the way that Vic Beasley did.
Today, the “Eye in the Sky” is going to study that possibility a bit more. We are going to begin looking at each of Spence’s sacks from 2016 and see the skills flashed in getting to the quarterback.
We will be looking at his first two sacks today. What have we learned? That Noah Spence absolutely has the skills to make Prisco’s article come true.
We start with Spence’s first career sack, which came in week two against the Arizona Cardinals.