Bucs GM Jason Licht and HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

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Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds answers your questions from the @PewterReport X account this week in the Bucs Mailbag. Submit your question to SR each week via X using the hashtag #PRMailbag.  Here are the Bucs questions we chose to answer for this week’s edition.

QUESTION: SR, it seems this time a year ago we were talking seriously the next two years a serious Super Bowl run. Now we are discussing a rebuild. Does one bad second half of the year mean the team is that far away from a Super Bowl? Or just a healthy team/full season of chemistry and few players away?

ANSWER: In 2025, the Seahawks had 10 wins by 10 points or more, including a 41-6 dismantling of the 49ers in the divisional round of the playoffs and a resounding 29-13 victory over the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Not only did Seattle finish with a 17-3 record, including the postseason, the team dominated its opponents in literally half of its games.

Bucs fans can take some solace in the fact that their team was one of three that actually beat the eventual Super Bowl champions in a thrilling, 38-35 victory in Seattle this year. But the 8-9 Buccaneers had just two wins by 10 points or more this season, and they had three losses by 10 points or more. Tampa Bay was 6-6 in games decided by seven points or less.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

I think the fact that the Bucs rarely got blown out despite plenty of deficiencies with Todd Bowles defense certainly helped his cause in not getting fired after losing the NFC South title to the Panthers. Plus I think the Glazers also gave Bowles a mulligan due to all of the injuries the team suffered. Yet I don’t buy that excuse because the 49ers had just as many major injuries and still finished 12-5, and the Bucs were actually 6-2 when more injured and 2-7 as the team got healthier.

In the words of legendary NFL coach Bill Parcells, “you are what your record says you are.” The Bucs are an 8-9 team until they get better players through free agency and the NFL Draft. They are further away from the Super Bowl now than they were perceived to be at the start of the 2025 season. Yet I wouldn’t use the term “rebuild” to describe the Bucs. I think they can reload and be a better team in 2026.

The problem is that in eight seasons as a coach in the NFL, Bowles’ ceiling is just 10 wins, and that happened once with the Jets and once with the Bucs. Can he ever breakthrough that ceiling? I have my doubts, and I think a lot of Tampa Bay fans do too, especially after last year’s epic collapse from a 6-2 start at the bye week. Las Vegas sportsbooks are giving the Bucs +4000 odds of winning the Super Bowl in 2026, yet Vegas has Tampa Bay as current favorites to win back the NFC South.

Maybe the Bucs continue to build towards becoming a Super Bowl contender in 2026, but ultimately move on from Bowles if he can’t get back to the playoffs and improve on his 1-3 record in the postseason. The Glazers eventually grew tired of Tony Dungy’s teams under-performing and regressing after an appearance in the 1999 NFC Championship Game and fired him after a 9-7 season and another first-round playoff loss in 2001. We’ll see what happens.

QUESTION: Lots of talk about potential trade packages for Maxx Crosby, but is there an under-the-radar pass rusher out there that could be had via trade and may cost less? Crosby is elite, but there are so many holes that one player can’t fill. Need two defensive linemen and two inside linebackers at least.

ANSWER: Generally speaking, most teams are not going to trade away good edge rushers, especially ones on rookie deals. That’s why I cannot take any trade theories from fans wanting Tampa Bay to trade for Pittsburgh outside linebacker Nick Herbig seriously. Why on earth would the Steelers want to part ways with the 24-year old Herbig, who is still on his rookie deal and coming off a career-high 7.5 sacks last year?

T.J. Watt will be 32 this season and only had seven sacks last year due to injuries. I’m sure Pittsburgh is viewing Herbig as his eventual replacement, so they should definitely not think about trading him as he’s entering a contract year. Good pass rushers are incredibly hard to find, as Tampa Bay knows.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield and Raiders DE Maxx Crosby – Photo by: USA Today

At this point, I’ve seen conflicting things about Maxx Crosby’s supposed availability on the trade market, as I’m sure most Bucs fans have as well. Any deal involving Crosby would be costly – a first-round pick for sure, if not another first- or second-rounder, which would be similar to the Micah Parsons trade that happened between the Cowboys and the Packers.

Jason Licht hasn’t traded anything more than a third-rounder for a player in the past, and that was for 28-year old Jason Pierre-Paul in 2018. So he would have to really break character and go against the grain to make a blockbuster deal for Crosby, a six-time Pro Bowler. If he does, it will be because he worked out a very fair deal with his former protégé John Spytek, who is the Raiders’ general manager. Instead, I could see the Bucs trying to sign a proven free agent pass rusher again, even after the Haason Reddick signing from a year ago failed.

If Tampa Bay could get aging stars like Trey Hendrickson or Joey Bosa for a fair price, I could see the team pulling the trigger. Otherwise, the Bucs may go for a younger, tier 2 free agent like New England’s K’Lavon Chaisson, who had a career-high 7.5 sacks last year, Los Angeles’ Odafe Oweh, who had 7.5 sacks for the Chargers, or Cincinnati’s Joseph Ossai, who had five sacks in back-to-back seasons as a part-time starter. And I do expect Licht to draft another edge rusher early to replace Chris Braswell in 2026.

QUESTION: Jason Licht was right about James Pearce Jr. I agreed with Pewter Report about taking more chances on players who don’t check all the “model citizen” boxes, but this news goes to show that it’s a fine line. Is there anyone from this draft that fits a Bucs need but may have character red flags?

ANSWER: Jason Licht was certainly right about Falcons edge rusher James Pearce Jr., and the Bucs were right to have him off their draft boards due to anger management issues and him not being a great teammate from their background checks into his playing days at Tennessee. You are right that there is a fine line between finding a badass dude on the football field and yet not finding a bad dude off the field. The Bucs routinely err on the side of caution with their “I Am That Man” draft approach, which focuses on character as much as ability.

Pearce is in a ton of legal trouble due to his arrest on Saturday and being charged with five felonies, including aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer when he allegedly struck a police offer with his car, which is considered to be felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The guess here is that his playing days with the Falcons are over, as he’ll likely face some amount of jail time that will occur during the 2026 regular season. I doubt owner Arthur Blank wants a player like Pearce on his team.

Atlanta fired general manager Terry Fontenot and head coach Raheem Morris, who not only drafted Pearce in the first round, but also traded away this year’s first round pick, which turned out to be the 13th overall pick, to the Rams last year to select him with the 26th overall pick. So new general manager Ian Cummings and head coach Kevin Stefanski have absolutely zero allegiance to Pearce, a player who they didn’t pick. And they’re probably pissed over not having a first-round draft pick this year over the Pearce selection, too.

Falcons OLB James Pearce Jr. and Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

I think what we’ve advocated for at Pewter Report is finding some defensive players with a mean streak and some edge, rather than Licht gambling on bad guys in general. The players we’ve routinely mentioned as examples that Licht needs to find are former Bucs outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul, who played with an edge, and former Tampa Bay defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, who had impeccable character off the field, but played with nasty demeanor on it.

And I think I did question out loud on a Pewter Report Podcast whether Pearce should’ve been off the Bucs’ draft board after he led the Falcons with 10.5 sacks last year as a rookie. But now we obviously know that I was wrong about that take. Licht knew what he was doing when it came to avoiding Pearce.

Call it my frustration over Tampa Bay not being to find an edge rusher capable of getting double-digit sacks since 2021 when Shaq Barrett posted 10 during his final Pro Bowl campaign. That, coupled with Haason Reddick being a free agent bust and Joe Tryon-Shoyinka and Chris Braswell being obvious recent misses with Tampa Bay’s premium picks in the NFL Draft.

I’m not sure about any red flag guys the Bucs need to steer clear of in this year’s draft yet. I haven’t gotten that deep into my research and evaluation. Texas Tech edge rusher David Bailey got ejected from a game at Stanford for stomping on an offensive lineman he got into a scuffle with, and Bailey grabbed a photographer after a Red Raiders loss when he didn’t want his picture taken and having to be separated from him. Outside of that, I’m still doing my research.

QUESTION: With the promotions of the cornerbacks and safeties coaches from within. How can we take Todd Bowles and this defense seriously? Added one outside coach, fired the offensive coordinator, but still nothing but buddies on the defensive side. Give us some hope, SR. Seems like more of the same.

ANSWER: If you think it seems like Todd Bowles is surrounded by “yes men” on his defensive staff, you’re not wrong. New safeties coach Tim Atkins has been with Bowles since his days at the Jets. New cornerbacks coach Rashad Johnson played for Bowles in Arizona before becoming an assistant coach with him in Tampa Bay in 2022. Now that they have been promoted from assistant secondary coaches to full-fledged position coaches, they are not about to start questioning the man who gave them those promotions.

And from what I understand, there isn’t a whole lot of collaboration in the defensive meetings. Outside linebackers coach Larry Foote and inside linebackers coach Mike Caldwell are position coaches in Bowles’ eyes, although Foote has been given the title of run game coordinator. This is Bowles’ defense and he has all the answers. At least that’s what he thinks. So I don’t expect Johnson or Atkins to be bringing new, fresh ideas to the table. If Bowles listens to anyone it’s likely pass game coordinator George Edwards, who was a previous NFL defensive coordinator for nine years.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

That may not be ideal or what Bucs fans want to hear, but I’m actually okay with it. If Bowles’ way of doing things works, the Bucs defense will improve and Tampa Bay will win more games in 2026, or it won’t improve and Bowles will be fired after this season if the defense does not get fixed after a third straight down year for the unit. Either way works for me.

What I want to see Johnson and Atkins do is work on their respective rooms and get the Bucs cornerbacks and safeties to use better technique and fundamentals, and have a better understanding of the defense. I want Johnson to develop Benjamin Morrison, get Zyon McCollum’s upward trajectory back on track and help Jacob Parrish turn into a Pro Bowl nickelback. I want Atkins to get Antoine Winfield Jr. back to being more of a playmaker at safety and continue Tykee Smith’s journey towards becoming a Pro Bowler.

I want new defensive line coach Marcus West to turn Elijah Roberts into a starting-caliber defensive tackle, get Vita Vea back to a Pro Bowl level and see if Elijah Simmons and Jayson Jones can develop into real depth pieces. I’d rather see West stay in his lane and do what he supposedly does best rather than try to tell Bowles what he needs to change about his scheme, which would be futile.

It’s up to Bowles to fix his defense. The Glazers are betting that he’ll do that, and hopefully Jason Licht gives him the players to put the head coach and defensive play-caller in the best position to do that. As much as the Glazers love Bowles I don’t think they’ll tolerate back-to-back losing seasons from him. Tampa Bay’s offense should improve with Zac Robinson. But Bowles’ defense is really the unit that needs improving this year.