He may not be there yet, but the Buccaneers are quickly getting a new candidate to be the best defender on the roster in safety Antoine Winfield Jr.
The Buccaneers are rapidly becoming famous for drafting dominant players that the fans foolishly didn’t love in the moment.
We saw this on display with Vita Vea when the Bucs passed on Dalvin Cook and Derwin James, and we also saw it when the same thing happened when the Bucs took Winfield.
The reaction to Winfield was substantially better than the one that Vea received, but there were still some fans that wondered why Tampa passed on a number of running backs to draft a safety when they already had a few great options on the roster.
Regardless, the Bucs absolutely made the right decision to draft Winfield over anyone else, and they are quickly receiving the benefits of having one of the best safeties in the league on their roster.
The highest-graded safeties in the 2021 season pic.twitter.com/fXOo5QETmD
— PFF (@PFF) February 17, 2022
Winfield finished the season as the second-highest graded safety in the league according to PFF, but even people just going off the eye test and other metrics saw how dominant Winfield was.
In fact, Winfield is starting to gain some attention on the roster as the best defender, and while he may not be there just yet, he is certainly getting there.
Lavonte David maintains the honors as the best defender and one of the most underrated players in the league, but Winfield is still playing at an extremely high level and has been doing so for two seasons now.
We will probably need to see at least one more season of high-level play from Winfield before we truly crown him as the best defender on the roster, but no one would deny that he isn’t getting there at a rapid pace.
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