Bleacher Report throws shade at Jordan Whitehead as a 'biggest weakness' for Bucs

We're only a week into training camp, but it hasn't taken long for the hot takes to start scorching.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans are no strangers to questionable takes, specifically revolving around writing the team off. Last summer was full of jokes about how Baker Mayfield was replacing Tom Brady, Todd Bowles was going to get fired, and the Bucs were going to tank for a top draft pick.

We all know what happened next.

Tampa Bay didn't play its final game of the season until the divisional round of the playoffs, Baker was a Pro Bowler and nearly won Comeback Player of the Year, and Bowles helped navigate the team out of a treacherous 1-6 stretch.

Last season was a resounding success, but it didn't take long for folks to start trying to bury the Bucs for a second straight year.

Jordan Whitehead gets disrespected as a 'biggest weakness' for Buccaneers

Poor Jordan Whitehead has barely been back in Tampa Bay and he's already catching strays.

Bleacher Report's Alex Ballentine went through and listed every team's biggest roster hole heading into training camp and completely misjudged the Buccaneers. Not only that, but some uncalled for shade was tossed Whitehead's way when calling out the second safety spot as the area Tampa Bay is lacking talent.

Ballentine wrote:

While Jordan Whitehead was a decent pickup in free agency, it wouldn't hurt to bring in Simmons during training camp as another potential ball hawk in the secondary.

What?

To be fair, the rest of Ballentine's list pretty much matches up with concerns Bucs fans have about the roster. He had center as the second biggest weakness, followed by WR3 and cornerback. There's an arguement that safety is a potential weakness, as the depth is sorely lacking, but to call it the team's biggest weakness is...well, weak.

Center and cornerback should leapfrog everything else on that list as top potential weaknesses. Tampa Bay drafted Graham Barton in the first round, but he's unproven and can't simply be given the benefit of the doubt, especially with how poorly the unit has played the last two years.

Arguably, cornerback is the biggest weakness. The Bucs traded Carlton Davis III but didn't really do much to replace him, leaving Jamel Dean and Zyon McCollum as the top two corners, with Christian Izien projected to start at nickel.

That's not great depth, and even compared to what's behind Antoine Winfield Jr. and Whitehead at safety it's hard to argue cornerback is in a better spot.

Whitehead was brought back to sort of get the band back together on defense, having helped the Bucs win a Super Bowl back in 2020. Safety left a lot to be desired last year outside of Winfield, and Tampa Bay made it a point to improve. That's exactly what happened, and to say that safety is the team's biggest weakness still is just misguided.

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