Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Breaking down pass rushing depth
By Cory Kinnan
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will need their young pass rushers to step up in 2019 to fill the void of their leader in sacks from a year ago.
In what looked like it could be one of the deeper groups on the roster of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the pass rushers will have to step up in a big way in 2019 in order to see an improvement on the defensive side of the ball. These pass rushers will be classified as outside linebackers in new defensive coordinator Todd Bowles’ 3-4 scheme, and will come off the edge hunting quarterbacks.
Last year the Buccaneers acquired Pro Bowler Jason Pierre-Paul from the New York Giants, and he went on to lead the team in sacks in 2018. He looked primed to lead this group of young, athletic pass rushers again before suffering a broken neck in a car accident shortly after the draft.
Pierre-Paul is expected to be out until October at the earliest, and could even be sidelined longer than that as he recovers. With the departure of Gerald McCoy (not an outside linebacker), the Buccaneers are now down their top-two pass rushing options from a year ago and will need their younger options to step up in a big way to fill these gaps in 2019.
Who is behind Pierre-Paul that could take the next step in Tampa Bay this year? Here is a breakdown of the outside linebackers for the Buccaneers as training camp approaches.