In the NFL, Cover 4 refers to a defensive coverage that aims to cover four deep zones on the field. Following that lead, I’m going to provide you with the same coverage of the Bucs – your favorite football team.

Each Wednesday morning I’ll cover four areas as they apply to Tampa Bay: 1. a short film breakdown, 2. a finance angle, 3. a look forward at what’s to come, and 4. a bit of fun.

Film – Benjamin Morrison’s Rookie Year and Year Two Outlook

Benjamin Morrison’s first NFL season is going to be remembered for the wrong reasons. Three explosive plays accounted for 149 of the 344 yards he allowed. Strip those three reps out, and his yards per coverage snap drops from 1.43 to 0.82, which is high-end starter territory. The Kyle Williams 72-yard touchdown in New England and the 43-yard touchdown scramble drill lapse in Buffalo will live in the highlight reels. The 238 other coverage snaps tell a different story.

The high-water mark came in Week 4 against the Eagles. Morrison showed that he could compete with elite-level competition in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. In that game he was driving on curls and hitches and forcing incompletions at a high rate. 21 coverage reps, five targets, only one catch for nine yards allowed. Morrison allowed just a 39.6 passer rating on passes where he was targeted and a -3.7 coverage EPA per Next Gen Stats (negative is good for defenders). 

Some high profile losses late in the season are what most people remember but man I wish people would remember BMo vs PHI. He was an absolute DUDE that day. pic.twitter.com/4rhcB4iyga

— Josh Queipo (@JoshQueipo_NFL) May 20, 2026

That game showed him when he is at his best. Press coverage where his plus footwork helps him carry deep verticals in phase and off zone coverage against static routes where he can click-and-close to disrupt the ball at the catch point.

I mean SERIOUSLY! https://t.co/NuQ8B9AnuH pic.twitter.com/TbeiTm3L6I

— Josh Queipo (@JoshQueipo_NFL) May 20, 2026

But the Eagles tape comes with an asterisk. The Eagles attacked him in a very specific and limited way. And the way in which they attacked him played to all of his strengths. Other teams learned from Philadelphia’s mistakes.

By Week 10, the struggles became a problem. The Patriots schemed a slant-cross against him in press alignment with no help over the top. Kyle Williams won the inside release, broke horizontally into the void, and ran 72 yards untouched for the score. The Bills followed a week later with a perimeter screen where Morrison got fully sealed at the point of attack which aided in the Bucs giving up a 52 yard touchdown. Carolina found him again in Week 16, with a 34-yard chunk on a deep dig from off coverage where he gave up too much room at the stem. 

Bucs CB Benjamin Morrison – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

The pattern across the three chunk plays is the same. Each one exposed the same root limitation, a stiffness in the hips and a delay in change-of-direction that surfaces specifically when he has to redirect against his own momentum. The slant-cross from press required a flip at the break. The perimeter screen required a sharp angle adjustment in space. The deep dig required a pedal-to-redirect transition. Three different routes, three different alignments, same trait failure, and three explosive plays that came to define the season’s narrative.

The pedal transition issue is the headline weakness on the tape. When Morrison has to come out of a backpedal and redirect laterally against a horizontal-breaking route, his hips don’t flip cleanly. He loses balance against double moves. He gives up ground on slant-and-go combinations. He defaults to an inside half-turn in off coverage that puts him in the wrong leverage when the route breaks outside.

In run defense, the hip limitations contribute to a tackling issue. Morrison plays with effort and finishes plays cleanly when his angle is set and the ball carrier is declared. A perimeter screen tackle for loss against the Jets is a clean example, he diagnosed the play, closed downhill, and made contact behind the line. 

pic.twitter.com/Jx1UYmHJQ2

— Josh Queipo (@JoshQueipo_NFL) May 19, 2026

But when he has to redirect in space against an elite mover, the same hip limitation shows up. He missed Saquon Barkley in the flat against the Eagles. He missed Amon-Ra St. Brown on a speed cut when the Bucs played the Lions. He took too sharp an angle on a Carolina outside run in Week 18 and would have given up another long touchdown if Lavonte David hadn’t cleaned the play up. The 21.2% missed tackle rate is real and backed up by the tape. He takes poor angles and struggles to redirect.

Where Can Morrison Improve in Year 2

The Year 2 path forward is technique and scheme. Two specific coaching points jump off the tape. The first is using his hands more in press. Morrison’s mirror-over-punch MO works on vertical-staying routes but leaves him exposed when receivers can release cleanly into horizontal breaks. A jam that disrupts the timing on slants and outs would buy him the half-second his hips need to recover. The second is trusting his controlled backpedal in off coverage instead of defaulting to an inside half-turn. The lone Eagles rep where he stayed square and clicked-and-closed on a quick hitch was his cleanest off-coverage rep of the season, and it came without a half-turn at any point.

Scheme can do the rest. Bowles’ defense already leans into the disguise and rotation concepts that mask Morrison’s weaknesses. More Cover 2 reps specifically would put him in a flat defender role where his processing and click-and-close skills can play, with safety help eliminating the deep stress that exposed him on the Kyle Williams touchdown.

And the unifying coaching point across all of it is discipline on the chunk-play risk, taking better angles and better positioning so the worst-case reps stop showing up in the box score. The same fix that reduces the explosive coverage plays also improves his tackling profile. Same root trait, same coaching answer.

There’s a lot of room for growth for Benjamin Morrison in year 2 if he just starts to understand his own athleticism as it relates to the NFL vs. College. Better angles help clean up a lot for him. pic.twitter.com/Q8RsjQJwmu

— Josh Queipo (@JoshQueipo_NFL) May 20, 2026

It’s clear he is now in a battle with Jacob Parrish for the boundary corner job opposite Zyon McCollum. Parrish had the more encouraging rookie campaign and the feeling I get is he is the front runner for the job. Regardless of who wins the job, there will be plenty of snaps to go around over the course of a 17-game season.

The honest projection is this. Morrison is never going to be the corner you lock onto Tyreek Hill on an island. The Bucs already lived that movie with Carlton Davis III. But with the right technique refinement and the right scheme protection, he can be a quality starter on the boundary for a long time. Will that happen this year? That depends on his offseason work to improve his angles and hand usage. The Eagles tape says the ceiling is real. The chunk play tape says how he’ll get there.

Finance – Choose You Fighter: OL Edition

The Bucs have two high-priced offensive linemen in All-World left tackle Tristan Wirfs and bookend right tackle Luke Goedeke. Both of those players are making over $20 million per year. Left guard Ben Bredeson is on a modest, but not insignificant, veteran contract for $7.33 million per year.

The Bucs are on the precipice of having to make a big decision over which other offensive lineman gets paid. Jason Licht said recently on the Pewter Report podcast that the offensive line is extremely important, and he would love to keep the unit together if at all possible. And there is precedent for it.

Licht spent 23% of the 2020 salary cap in cash for his offensive line that year, with large veteran contracts in place for left tackle Donovan Smith, left guard Ali Marpet and center Ryan Jensen. 2026 won’t match that 23% high-water mark; the line is currently at 20%. But Licht is trending back toward it.  Cody Mauch is entering a contract year, and if he and center Graham Barton both play well this year, Licht will need to make a decision. Because he probably can’t keep both.

Mauch was trending to a $16 million valuation before his season-ending knee injury last year. If he recaptures that form and Graham Barton takes a step forward, Licht will likely have to choose between the two next offseason. 

Bucs C Graham Barton and RG Cody Mauch – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Licht will assuredly decline Barton’s fifth-year option no matter how good he plays. With the exception of the obscene contract handed out to Tyler Linderbaum this offseason, centers just don’t make as much as tackles, but his option price is controlled by the tackle market. That means Barton is barreling towards 2028 free agency.

If the Bucs opt to re-sign Mauch in 2027 they will push their cash spending on the offensive line right to that 23% mark they hit in 2020. And even with Ben Bredeson’s contract up in 2028, they won’t have much left for Barton.

And Barton doesn’t even have to break out by a lot for this to become the reality the Bucs face. Center is such a scarcity in the league right now, his current level of play could fetch him around $8 million per year. That’s more than Tampa Bay pays Bredeson. Even a moderate elevation in his consistency would push him into the eight-figure realm.

It would be a bet on the center’s trajectory over the guard’s, and a nod to both the importance Licht places on the position and the scarcity of quality center play across the NFL right now. He has consistently used premium resources at center, twice making Ryan Jensen one of the best-paid centers in the league and spending a first-round pick on Barton. 

Licht and assistant general manager Mike Greenberg are coming up on a crossroads. Will they take Graham Barton Way or Cody Mauch Lane? We will know soon enough.

Forecast – Ted Hurst’s Snap Share

Bucs offensive coordinator Zac Robinson said something at rookie minicamp that should change how fans think about the 2026 receiver room.

“Having a true X is a weapon as an offense. Knowing if that, if that guy is a real threat on the backside and you can dictate some certain coverages in certain ways. That is an absolute threat. The closest guy we kind of had in LA was Odell. When we got Odell in that ’21 season, and he changed the math with the defense, and there’s one-on-one opportunities when they don’t. Having a true X is a luxury.”

He went on to talk about how he adapts if he’s working with a unit that doesn’t have a true X, noting the versatility of Jalen McMillan, Emeka Egbuka and Chris Godwin Jr. But he made it pretty clear that an X is a difference maker.

The Bucs spent the 84th overall pick on a 6-foot-4, 4.42 wide receiver out of Georgia State because they believe Ted Hurst can be that luxury. The measurables match the archetype. The Senior Bowl performance against legitimate competition confirmed the traits weren’t just small-school inflation. He can translate the traits that had him leading Georgia State in first-down receptions while pulling a 28.3% target share.

That last point matters most for what 2026 looks like.

Bucs WR Ted Hurst – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Hurst isn’t going to walk into Week 1 as a full-time starter. There’s a learning curve from Sun Belt boundary work to Bowles-level NFL pacing, and the Bucs are loaded enough at receiver to let him grow into the role. Expect his early-season usage to be situational. Third downs, where his contested catch ability (59.3% in 2025) gives Baker Mayfield a margin-for-error target. Red zone, where his height and ball-tracking translate immediately to the back pylon and 50-50 throws inside the 20. The kinds of packages where the staff can isolate what Hurst does well without exposing him to the full route tree. These were traits I profiled in the film section of my first Cover-4 three weeks ago.

But watch how the role grows. What looks like 15-20 snaps in the first quarter of the season may double by the last.

If Hurst shows in October that he can dictate coverage the way Robinson is describing, the cascading effect on the rest of the room is significant. Defenses that have to honor a true X on the backside open up cleaner one-on-one matchups for Chris Godwin, Emeka Egbuka, and Jalen McMillan inside. A real X also gives Robinson the flexibility to rotate his three core receivers more often, which keeps Godwin specifically fresher across a full season. Godwin is 30 and has dealt with a slew of major injuries. The Bucs don’t need him taking 90% of the snaps in Week 15 if Hurst can credibly absorb 30 of them. And that can ensure Godwin is both available and fresh for postseason football.

The path is there. The traits are real. The role is going to start small. Don’t be surprised when it isn’t small by December.

Fun Fourth Down – Bucs BINGO!

While the actual NFL season is a grind for players and coaches alike, it is the offseason that feels like forever for fans and media. That’s why I thought I would help you by making a game for the February to August lull. Welcome to “Bucs BINGO” – Offseason Edition.

Twenty-four squares will get you to the promised land of meaningful football games starting in Cincinnati, Ohio. By the way, Cincinnati spells their name stupidly and you can ask any other Pewter Reporter why I put that into this article and they will laugh and tell you I’m the stupid one. But I digress. Back to the board.

Six squares are already checked off before you even start, plus the free space leaves seventeen squares to chase. 

The best row to fill is the second. Fans get mad. A lot. And it can be fun to track their grievances through this game. I’ve got you covered when it comes to someone claiming Cade Otton is due for a breakout season. We can mark off that square together in early July.

A personal favorite is Todd Bowles begins his answer with “I wouldn’t say…” He can’t help himself but reflexively push back on any premise a reporter frames in their question.