With Bucs training camp quickly approach the PewterReport.com staff asks – and answers – 15 critical camp questions that need to be answered this August as Tampa Bay prepares to embark on the 2019 season. Over the next 15 days PewterReport.com will offer up its thoughts on the topics that the Bucs will need to sort out in order for the team to be successful this season and possibly compete for a long-awaited playoff berth.

These are the things that the PewterReport.com staff will be following closely in camp, and invite our readers to share their thoughts as well in the comment section.

Bucs’ Critical Camp Question No. 12:
Can DT Vita Vea Stay Healthy And Have A Breakout Year?

Yes. This can be – and should be – a breakout season for second-year Tampa Bay defensive Vita Vea provided that he stays healthy. NFL players can’t control injuries, and the torn calf muscle that Vea suffered on the first day of padded practices during his training camp was unfortunate and really set him back during his rookie season. Vea missed 90 percent of training camp, the entire preseason and the first three regular season games while rehabbing that injury, and didn’t really make an impact until the second half of the 2018 campaign.

When Vea finally saw some playing time at nose tackle he was way behind in terms of figuring out the NFL game without the benefit of training camp and the preseason. He notched just one tackle in his first three games, but Vea’s confidence grew with experience, and he recorded 19 of his 28 tackles and all three of his sacks in the last six games of the season.

Vea’s three sacks tied the rookie marks of both Bucs Hall of Famer Warren Sapp and six-time Pro Bowler Gerald McCoy. There’s no reason why Vea, who was Tampa Bay’s first-round pick from a year ago, can’t pick up from where he left off at the end of last season and begin 2019 with a bang. Playing next to a ferocious defensive tackle like the newly signed Ndamukong Suh should only aid Vea’s development into being a dominant, physical, nasty defensive lineman.

Vea played in a 3-4 scheme at the University of Washington that was very similar to the type of defense that new defensive coordinator Todd Bowles brought to Tampa Bay this offseason – with one catch. Vea was often asked to play laterally down the line of scrimmage at Washington to shut down running lanes, whether he was at the nose tackle spot, the three-technique defensive tackle position or lined up as a five-technique defensive end for the Huskies.

Bucs DT Vita Vea – Photo by: Getty Images

In Bowles’ scheme, which is more of an attacking style of 3-4 defense, Vea will be asked to get up-field, penetrate his gap and wreck havoc, which he showed he could do last year against the run and the pass once he gained some needed experience and confidence. Vea had a breakout four-tackle, one-sack game in a win over San Francisco, and a career-high six-tackle game in a loss at Baltimore.

The key for Vea’s production is to remain healthy, and although he suffered what the team feared to be a serious knee injury in the loss at Cincinnati, he rebounded quickly from it and didn’t miss any playing time the following week or down the stretch. Vea also didn’t miss any games during his three years at Washington due to injury, either, so it appears that his torn calf muscle was a fluke injury and not a sign that he may be an injury-prone NFL player.

It’s not out of the question to think that a more confident, better conditioned, and more experienced Vea can double his production in his second NFL season and generate 50-plus tackles and perhaps as many as six sacks in 2019. The NFL player Vea is most compared to is 6-foot-4, 340-pound Haloti Ngata, who was a first-round draft pick by Baltimore in 2006.

The 6-foot-4, 335-pound Vea is considered to be quicker, faster and more agile than Ngata and has the tools and physical traits to become a better pass rusher. Ngata, a five-time Pro Bowler and two-time first-team All-Pro, had three straight seasons with at least five sacks from 2010-12. Vea’s Pro Bowl push could begin as soon as this year in a familiar defensive scheme if he can stay healthy.