Three Buccaneers who could follow Mike Caldwell to Jacksonville

Tampa Bay Buccaneers inside linebackers coach Mike Caldwell has been named the new Defensive Coordinator of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Here are three Buccaneers who could potentially follow him.

Now former Tampa Bay Buccaneers inside linebackers coach Mike Caldwell will reportedly be joining Doug Pederson’s staff with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Since 2019, Caldwell has coached the inside linebackers, and the results have been absolutely outstanding. Lavonte David was always special, but really took another leap later in his career, and the quickness that Devin White turned into a stud was remarkable. Also, it’s worth noting that these two thoroughbreds manning the middle of the defense was arguably the biggest reason the Bucs won Super Bowl LV. That comes down to coaching.

Pederson is no dummy, he is a Super Bowl-winning coach after all, and the addition of Caldwell is a smart one, and a significant loss for the Bucs. Besides, coaches tend to hire people they’re familiar with. It’s like any walk of life. It’s all about networking. Caldwell played with Pederson on the Philadelphia Eagles, and during his time as a starter, there had a reputation as one of the game’s smarter linebackers.

Speaking of familiarity, new coaching staffs also tend to bring in players they’re familiar with as well. Unfortunately for the Buccaneers, they currently have $19.4 million in cap space, which puts them squarely in the middle of the league. However, they also have a huge amount of veterans set to be free agents and should be able to retain everybody as they did last offseason.

With this all being the case, there’s a strong possibility that at least one Buccaneers defender takes the hop, skip, and jump up the sunshine state to Jacksonville and joins Mike Caldwell. Here are three that are the most likely.