An offseason of change is officially underway in Tampa Bay, as the Buccaneers continue to sift through the wreckage of their season. A historic collapse led to the dismissal of a handful of coaches on Todd Bowles' staff, including offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard, and attention is now turning toward what it all means for the roster.
Free agency is still over a month away, but the Bucs should already be looking at which players need fresh starts elsewhere and which players headed for the open market could be potential fits next season.
One of those players is a familiar face for new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson. Tampa Bay hired Robinson to replace Grizzard, and one of his first moves could be reuniting with running back Tyler Allgeier.
Buccaneers targeting Tyler Allgeier in free agency makes a lot of sense
It seems abundantly clear that Rachaad White's time in Tampa is over, something we all saw coming before the season but has only been made firmer given his recent comments. White isn't being shy about how little he cares about the Bucs bringing him back, and has already hinted rather heavily that he's going to try and reunite with Jayden Daniels in Washington.
The reunion Bucs fans should keep an eye on is between Robinson and Allgeier, the latter of whom feels like a good replacement for White.
Sean Tucker is also a free agent this offseason, but he'll carry a restricted designation. That means he won't outright hit the open market, but his uptick in production last season will mean his price tag is going to be higher than the $898,333 AAV he had last year.
Unless the Bucs plan on drafting a running back, which seems unwise given the number of other places picks will need to be used, bringing in Allgeier makes a lot of sense.
Over the last three seasons, Allgeier has rushed for 1,841 yards on 466 carries, and averaged 3.95 yards per rush. He did all of this as a complementary back to Bijan Robinson, and was a big contributor in short-yardage situations for the Falcons.
He's also only 25-years old, which is younger than White, and because he wasn't the lead back in Atlanta he has more tread on his tires that some of the other potential options in free agency. Having two young running backs anchoring the backfield could be exactly what the Bucs need to evolve an already impressive run game.
All of that adds up to stuff that can drastically improve the Buccaneers' offense. The run game has been trending in the right direction ever since bottoming out a few years ago, and Bucky Irving looks every bit like a superstar in the making. One area the team struggled last season was in short yardage situations and on third down.
Tucker helped alleviate some of that stress, especially as a goal line back, but it still wasn't perfect. Lest we forget the Bucs needing eight tries on back-to-back goal line situations to gain a yard and score against the Saints. It's situations like that, as well as drive-killing third down failures that haunted the offense all season.
If the Bucs have a more reliable short yardage back, are they more confident in trying to extend drives by going for it on fourth-and-short situations? Do we see defenses on their heels more having to account for Bucky, the pass game, and then Allgeier changing the pace? He wasn't successful in Atlanta because Bijan was a distraction in the backfield; Allgeier succeeded as a complimentary back that Robinson knew how to use and could be someone the Bucs deploy in a similar way.
We're still too early in the offseason to know what the backfield situation will look like, but Robinson bringing one of his guys with him to Tampa could be something we see in the not so distant future.