Day 3 Prospect To Watch

Isaiah Coulter, WR, Rhode Island

If the Bucs are going to wait on drafting a wide receiver and simply add another body to the competition for snaps as a No. 3, Coulter could be a fit late in the draft. He’s a little slight of frame at 6-foot-2, 198 pounds, but Coulter has 4.45 speed and a 36-inch vertical, two NFL Scouting Combine results Jason Licht will gravitate toward.

Coulter didn’t wow me on tape, but you can see the deep speed when he beats press coverage, and the leaping ability to adjust to throws down the field. Against Ohio, he made a nice play to stack their outside corner on a go-ball, finishing the catch over his shoulder with good concentration despite a closing safety.

There is separation quickness to Coulter that can be utilized with better nuance and understanding as a route runner, as right now a lot of his cuts are rounded off. Coulter may never be a big asset in contested catch situations, and we’ll have to see how he handles the physicality of outside corners in the NFL, but in the last couple rounds of the draft the FCS standout may be the best the Bucs can hope for.

Should the Bucs Trade Up?

Monday Morning Quarterback’s Albert Breer reported this week in his column that the Bucs are one of the few teams he is hearing that could trade up in the first round of next Thursday’s NFL Draft.

That’s something Jason Licht has never done as the team’s general manager, but as I’ve written before, it makes too much sense this year. In my Bucs Offseason Battle Plan, I had the team trading a third-round pick and one of their fourth-round picks to move up to No. 9 and select Alabama right tackle Jedrick Wills.

Bucs GM Jason Licht – Photo by: PewterReport.com

If that’s all it would take, and that’s actually a slight overpay based on the admittedly outdated trade value chart, I believe the Bucs will consider finally making that aggressive move. Will it be for Wills or another tackle?

That I can’t say for certain (not yet, anyway). But if there was ever a time to surrender a pick or two for an elite player in a win-now season without a ton of holes on your roster, that time is now.

Of course, the Bucs don’t need to rush into any moves until they see how the first 10 picks seem to be playing out. If 3-4 quarterbacks find their way in there and Auburn defensive tackle Derrick Brown and South Carolina defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw both become Top 10 targets, all of a sudden one of the top offensive tackles sliding down the board doesn’t seem like an impossibility. Keeping all their picks is obviously the preference, but filling that hole at right tackle with a premier player is more important than having an extra mid-round pick or two.