Offensive line of Tampa Bay Buccaneers ranked bottom third of league

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers struggled running the ball last year, and a ton of those failures can be placed on the offensive line, ranked 24th in the league.

While Pro Football Focus (subscription required) has been high on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this offseason, praising players like Vita Vea, O.J. Howard, and Jameis Winston, they were not as kind in a recent ranking of offensive lines in the NFL. In this article, PFF ranked the Buccaneers’ offensive line in the bottom third of the league as the 24th best line in football.

This ranked as dead last in the NFC South as the Atlanta Falcons ranked 22nd, the Carolina Panthers fell 10th, and the New Orleans Saints were rated as the seventh best offensive line in football. With uncertainty at the right guard position, most likely to be filled by 2018 third rounder Alex Cappa, the rest of the group was bogged down.

Interesting enough, Earl Watford a former draft pick of Bruce Arians in Arizona and signed by the Bucs this offseason, is listed by PFF as the starting right guard in Tampa Bay. The team also signed interior offensive lineman Josh LeRibeus a few weeks ago to provide a safety net at the position as well.

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Right guard was not the only position of worry for PFF, as they are also quite concerned with center Ryan Jensen and left tackle Donovan Smith as well. Considering these are two of the Buccaneers’ highest paid players, this is concerning to say the least as they head into a make-or-break 2019 season.

"“Ryan Jensen’s first season in Tampa didn’t particularly as planned last year… [recording] a career-low in overall grade (54.9), allowing a career-high 25 pressures and committed a career-high in 11 penalties… [Smith] allowed at least 40 pressures in each of his last four seasons and more than 49 pressures in three of the four” (via PFF)."

With the first year with Arians at the helm in Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers will need to improve upon a putrid running attack from a year ago as well as take pressure off of Winston, who is entering his contract year. The Buccaneers chose to stand pat with the players currently on the roster during the draft and are hoping that a change in blocking scheme will do the trick.

With this bulletin board material, maybe the offensive line will win the battle in the trenches this year for the Buccaneers. They have a long way to go with training camp right around the corner and are living on a prayer at this point.