These 5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers are ready to breakout in 2024

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were a breakout team in 2023, surprising the league with a division championship and dominant playoff victory.

Breakout campaigns from Rachaad White, Luke Goedeke, and Chase McLaughlin all helped propel Tampa past expectations. Stars like Baker Mayfield, Mike Evans, Tristan Wirfs, Vita Vea, Jamel Dean, and Antoine Winfield Jr. lead the way, but the team’s success in 2024 hinges on lesser-known players stepping up as crucial contributors.

Recent draft picks, unheralded starters, and under-the-radar rookies are all poised to take their game to the next level and cement themselves as mainstays on the Bucs depth chart for years to come.

Despite the team’s recent success over the last five years, this squad isn’t ripe with young franchise cornerstones so there will be plenty of opportunities for underrated players to take over at premium positions going forward.

Let’s dive into who the five best breakout candidates are in the Bay entering 2024.

Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, EDGE

Starting this list with the most controversial figure featured here is only right. After being selected with the 32nd overall pick in 2021, Joe Tryon-Shoyinka hasn’t yet lived up to expectations, prompting general manager Jason Licht and company to decline JTS’ 5th-year option for the 2025 season. 

Essentially, 2024 is a make-or-break season for the Washington product. While he doesn’t have the most impressive amount of sacks or takeaways, he has shown enough on film for PFF to rank him just outside the top-50 edge rushers in 2022 and within the top-75 again in 2023. 

The 25-year-old will look to have a career year this season with tens of millions of dollars on the line. He faces plenty of competition for snaps with 2023 3rd round pick Yaya Diaby worthy of being a breakout candidate in his own right, Anthony Nelson always giving productive snaps, and Chris Braswell coming for valuable play-time as the 57th overall pick in this draft. Now is the time for JTS to separate himself from the pack and break out as one of the best pass-rushers in the game. 

Cade Otton, TE

If it wasn’t for an impressive 70-yard, 2-TD performance in Week 9 against the Houston Texans (tied for 2nd among fantasy tight ends that week), very few non-Bucs fans would’ve been aware of who Cade Otton is during the regular season.

However, he truly made a name for himself in the playoffs, delivering a standout 13-154-1 stat line over two postseason games. The former 106th pick is primed to build on that in 2024 and establish himself as a borderline top-10 tight end in the NFL.  

Calijah Kancey, DE

For those who weren’t paying attention, Calijah Kancey emerged as one of the best defensive rookies in football during the 2023 season, although PFF wasn’t as high on his performance, ranking him 106th among 130 qualified DL. He still finished 10th in official DROY voting last season.

Despite starting all 14 games for a division leader and compiling double-digit tackles for loss, Kancey remains vastly underrated around the league. Don’t expect that to continue after this upcoming campaign when Kancey lines up next to Vita Vea again to terrorize opposing offenses on a weekly basis.

Christian Izien, CB

It’s one thing to have a promising rookie season. However, backing that up with an even better sophomore year is much more difficult. The 5’8″ slot specialist will look to do exactly that in 2024 after Christian Izien earned a spot on PFF’s top-50 CB list from 2023.

The New York native didn’t benefit from having a highly-acclaimed draft status or college recognition; he earned everything he’s achieved so far in the NFL. It’d be extremely impressive if Izien can go from an undrafted free agent out of Rutgers to one of the best nickel corners in the entire league. 

K.J. Britt, LB

Tampa Bay could have a budding star in K.J. Britt without many people even realizing it. The 2021 5th round pick was almost exclusively a special teams contributor his first two seasons. However, when Devin White‘s foot injury sidelined him, it was Britt who stepped up and became a key cog in Todd Bowles’ defense down the stretch.

Now that White is playing for the team they dominated during the Wild Card round, Britt has the opportunity to prove those few weeks were no fluke and is capable of taking over for Lavonte David as the LB1 of the future.