With the announcement of this year’s compensatory draft picks, the Bucs’ 2024 NFL Draft order has been finalized.

Tampa Bay was awarded with a compensatory pick at the end of the sixth round for losing safety Mike Edwards to Kansas City last year. This came as a bit of a surprise as the team was expecting to receive a seventh-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft instead.

Because all of the league’s compensatory draft picks, which are doled out between rounds 3-7 depending on how much a team lost in free agency, Tampa Bay essentially moved up over 32 spots from where they thought they would be selecting.

The Bucs now have seven picks in the draft, including the sixth-round compensatory pick. Tampa Bay had traded away its fifth-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft to Philadelphia last year to move up in the fifth round to select tight end Payne Durham.

Bucs Picks In The 2024 NFL Draft

Round 1: 26th overall pick
Round 2: 57th overall pick
Round 3: 89th overall pick
Round 4: 124th overall pick
Round 6: 200th overall pick
Round 6: 220nd overall pick (compensatory)
Round 7: 246th overall pick

Tampa Bay May Trade Carlton Davis III To Acquire Another Draft Pick

Bucs CB Carlton Davis III – Photo by: USA Today

As Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo wrote in February, the Bucs may look to trade starting cornerback Carlton Davis III prior to the 2024 NFL Draft or during the draft for an additional pick or two. Davis is entering the final year of a three-year, $44.5 million contract he signed in 2022. He is owed $14 million in base salary along with up to $500,000 in per-game roster bonuses for the 2024 season. But all of that money is not guaranteed.

Trading or releasing Davis, 27, could free up $6,300,941 in salary cap space this offseason. That option is on the table as Davis missed five games and battled through injuries during several others while having perhaps his worst season since entering the NFL in 2018.

Davis’58.2 overall grade from Pro Football Focus was the lowest of his career, and he allowed a career high in catch rate allowed (64.6%) and yards per reception (15.2). Add onto that his five touchdowns surrendered against just two interceptions and seven pass breakups and it paints the picture of a physical cornerback whose physicality may be taking a toll on his body and play.

This is not a very good crop of free agent cornerbacks this year, and Davis could fetch a mid-round pick – perhaps in the third or fourth rounds. Teams like San Francisco, Arizona and Buffalo could be in the market for a veteran cornerback, as well as Kansas City, which is expected to trade L’Darius Sneed, who was given the franchise tag last week.

The team is high on Zyon McCollum, who is entering his third year in Tampa Bay and wants to see him elevated to the starting lineup opposite cornerback Jamel Dean, who signed a three-year contract extension last year. McCollum actually played more snaps last year filling in for the oft-injured Davis and Dean throughout the season, and proved to be the team’s best cornerback.