Louis Riddick names his favorite non-first round Bucs pick from NFL Draft

With the NFL Draft in the rearview, it’s time for experts around the league to start looking back and assessing how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did. 

Now that we’re on the other side of the NFL Draft frenzy, no one is wasting any time in gettin reflective about what went down.

It’s objectively strange to try and place grades on a class of players who have yet to make their NFL debuts, but it’s fair enough to look at their college tape and assess fit. For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the team entered draft weekend with rumors swirling that a quarterback might be in their future but it appears that future is at least a year away.

The Bucs didn’t draft a quarterback over the weekend, and mostly stayed away from the offensive side of the ball entirely. Of the team’s eight picks only three were offensive players: guard Cody Mauch, tight end Payne Durham, and wide receiver Trey Palmer.

While there was a lot of talk about the Buccaneers adding a tackle in the first round, none of their top targets fell to them at No. 19. Anton Harrison was rumored to be a possibility for the Bucs but they passed to take Pitt pass rusher Calijah Kancey, with Harrison going a few pick later to the Jaguars.

It was a gamble to see if Harrison would fall into the second round, but the Bucs ended up trading for Cody Mauch instead who is already fitting like a glove.

ESPN’s Louis Reddick reveals favorite non-first round Bucs NFL Draft pick

In his recap of the NFL Draft, Riddick decided to take Thursday night out of the equation to get a better idea of how teams did with their draft classes.

Riddick didn’t stray far from Tampa Bay’s first round pick, naming SirVocea Dennis as his favorite non-first round pick for the Bucs. Both Dennis and Kancey played on the same defense at Pitt, and it’s hard to imagine the front office looking at tape of the later didn’t begin to sell them on drafting the former.

Tampa Bay also added Louisville linebacker YaYa Diaby, Kansas State cornerback Josh Hayes, and Eastern Michigan’s Jose Ramirez.

By focusing on the defensive side of the ball the Bucs made their intentions for this upcoming season very clear. In a division that added Derek Carr, Bijan Robinson, and Bryce Young this offseason the Bucs are planning on getting back to the smash mouth defense they played a few years ago that resulted in a Super Bowl victory.

Winning the Super Bowl this year is a lofty expectation, but it’s clear the Bucs intend to contend and are sticking to their brand of football to do it.