The 2023 season is quickly turning out to be less of the “competitive” year the Bucs’ brass was hoping for it to be and more of an evaluation year for young players. Yes, the team is still technically only one game out of first place for the NFC South division lead. But for those paying attention, there is overwhelming evidence that the team places too many obstacles in its own way to be considered anything other than a longshot to reach that outcome.

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

Instead, this team is only a few weeks away from looking forward to 2024 and beyond in terms of elevating from the dreadful place it currently find itself in.

It’s good for the Bucs that they have been aggressive with getting their 2023 draft class much-needed game reps. And that strategy continues to expand with each passing week. Some of it has smartly been by choice. Some has been due to necessity as injuries have started to pile up for the Bucs defense. No matter. It will pay dividends in the long run as the team will have more information on young players and how they may or may not fit into 2025 and 2026’s roster plans.

Here is a breakdown of the Bucs’ 2023 rookie class and its contributions thus far.

DT Calijah Kancey

The fear when Kancey was drafted was that he would not be able to overcome his smaller stature. That fear has all but evaporated. Each week, Kancey shows the special traits that caused Tampa Bay to draft him 19th overall. Playing a position that has a notoriously difficult transition period, he is lighting up the stat line with each passing week since returning from an early-season injury.

Kancey has 10 tackles, eight for a loss, eight quarterback hits, a pass defensed and three sacks in just eight games. Among rookie defensive tackles, he ranks second in total pressures (23) and hurries (15) and his 76.3 pass rush grade from Pro Football Focus on true pass rush sets is 32nd among all interior defenders. In just 315 defensive snaps, he has already proven he can be a disruptive pass rusher who will be the perfect complement to nose tackle Vita Vea, setting up the interior of the Bucs’ pass rush for years to come.

Calijah Kancey. Very good player of ball. pic.twitter.com/RtXibowCoK

— Joshua Queipo (@josh_queipo) November 29, 2023

Kancey’s skillset is varied and awesome. His quickness off the line leaves opposing offensive linemen in the dust. He complements that burst with quick and violent hands, which helps him keep longer levered linemen from utilizing their arm-length advantage. Beyond that, Kancey has a spatial awareness that belies his short tenure in the NFL to reduce his surface area, exploit holes and gaps. This gives him the opportunity to get to the backfield more often than most, where he can disrupt pass and run plays alike.

All of this adds up to a day one starter who should be a bedrock of all future roster decisions on the defensive side of the ball. To say this pick’s early returns have been a home run would be a) the wrong sports pun for this article (but I am going to use it anyway) and b) an understatement.

RG Cody Mauch

Bucs RG Cody Mauch – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Mauch has had an up and down season thus far for the Bucs. But the promise of what can be outweighs all of the difficult reps as Mauch makes every possible transition one could imagine for a rookie offensive lineman.

The Bucs declared the rookie out of North Dakota State their starting right guard early in the summer. This after he came out of an FCS school where he played tackle on the left side. Mauch would need to learn how to play on the opposite side from what he was used to while simultaneously figuring out how to play inside. All of this while he was less than five years removed from being a tight end. To say this was a tall task would be selling the task short.

Mauch’s play grading has not been anything to write home about. PFF has him with a 46.6 overall blocking grade, with a 39.4 run block mark and a better (but still not great) 54.6 pass block grade. But I promise you there is so much good on tape with Mauch, and the Bucs’ brass is rightfully excited about him as a building block for an offensive line that has played surprisingly well in pass protection this year.

IND was Cody Mauch’s best game of the year. He’s ascending and gives the Bucs a third leg of a dominant OL in the future (w/Wirfs-Goedeke) pic.twitter.com/2fEbfSR6rK

— Joshua Queipo (@josh_queipo) November 30, 2023

With three years remaining on his contract after this year combined with at least two more years of right tackle Luke Goedeke and the eventual long-term extension for left tackle Tristan Wirfs, the Bucs have three pillars in place for the foundation of their offensive line in place for the foreseeable future.

OLB Yaya Diaby

Outside of Kancey, Diaby is right now the belle of the ball for the Bucs’ 2023 draft class. Diaby has four sacks through 11 games as a rotational player on the defense and just earned the starting outside linebacker job opposite Shaq Barrett. The needle is certainly pointing up for the third round pick out of Louisville.

Diaby’s physical traits have been on display all year as his power and explosiveness show up on a weekly basis. He has created a very high floor for himself as a quality run defender. Elevating from that floor, Diaby has already started to flash pass rush skills he didn’t show in college, including a rip-pull profiled here by Steven Cheah of Barstool Sports.

Bucs Rookie Edge YaYa Diaby (@greatyaya4) is really coming into his own. Here on back-to-back plays he beats the cut block from George Kittle and gets a TFL, then hits the RG with a nice pull rip move to get his 4th sack of the season. #Bucsfilm2023wk11 pic.twitter.com/cTEHN7KqF8

— Steven Cheah (@StevenCheah) November 23, 2023

Diaby is a linear mover, so he will need to maximize his explosive traits to become the best version of himself, but the promise is there that he may be able to pull that off. He is currently fifth among rookie edge rushers in pressures (13) and his 11.4% win percentage on true pass rush sets is seventh among qualifying rookies.

ILB SirVocea Dennis

Bucs ILB SirVocea Dennis – Photo by: USA Today

Dennis has spent most of the season as a core special teamer. But over the last two games, he has received an opportunity to flash some of the speed and spatial skills that he showed in college at Pitt on defense. Due to an injury to Lavonte David, Dennis closed out the Bucs’ game against the 49ers and played 66 snaps against the Colts in Week 12.

Dennis showed why he was a fifth-round pick with a lot of upside. Dennis was flying all around the field and showing a surprisingly good feel for zone coverage while also willingly jumping into run fits to fill quickly.

He also had some rough tape as a tackler and Pro Football Focus credits him with two missed tackles on eight attempts. He will need to clean that up if he wants to be a starter in the future, but as far as his first regular season start, I would say it went about as well as his promise would allow.

WR Trey Palmer

After exploding onto the scene for the Bucs in training camp, Palmer had a touchdown in the first couple of games in 2023, setting expectations sky-high for the fifth-round pick. Since then, Palmer hasn’t exactly filled the stat sheet up. To date, he has 25 catches for 227 yards and just two touchdowns. What may be most disappointing in that stat line is that Palmer’s yards per catch is under 10. However, if you peel back the curtain a bit, you will see the underlying play is much more promising.

This season, 18 of Palmer’s 25 catches have come from a depth of target of less than 10 yards, showing he has found most of his success to date as a target designed to exploit his speed in creating yards after catch. But Palmer’s speed has been on display as a deep threat, where he has come open on multiple routes throughout the year and quarterback Baker Mayfield has not been able to connect with the speedster.

This was not more evident than in the Detroit game, when Palmer could have gone for over 150 yards and two extra scores if the two had connected on a couple of deep shots he was screaming open on.

Trey Palmer could have had well over 150 yards in this game. Mayfield missed him for two big ones, and on the Bucs last drive Kerby Joseph grabbed him around the waist when he was beaten on a deep over route in the EZ (no call though). His speed is a factor. pic.twitter.com/NGbMRp9Bcr

— Jon Ledyard (@LedyardNFLDraft) October 16, 2023

Bucs Added Building Blocks This Year

Bucs GM Jason Licht – Photo by: Matt Matera/PR

It is never a good idea to declare a player as a definitive anything 13 weeks into their pro career. But at this point of a season that is quickly getting away from them, the Bucs should be asking themselves how their rookies fit into their 2024 roster-building.

Within this class, it is safe to say they have two to three starters in Kancey, Mauch and Diaby. Palmer may join that conversation depending on how he finishes this season and how negotiations with Mike Evans go in the offseason, but the Nebraska product’s skillset could pair well with Chris Godwin’s ball skills as a solid 1-2 combination that would be better than at least 10 teams currently have. Dennis is more of a wild card, but color me intrigued.

Add in contributions from Chris Izien, Rakim  Jarrett, Markees Watts, Payne Durham and even Josh Hayes, all of whom look like they can contribute as depth pieces on an NFL roster, and I am comfortable saying Bucs general manager Jason Licht’s 2023 draft is showing phenomenal early returns. And that’s an awesome place to be on the eve of December of year one for that class.