Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

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Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds answers your questions from the @PewterReport Twitter account this week in the Bucs Mailbag. Submit your question to the Bucs Mailbag each week via Twitter using the hashtag #PRMailbag.  Here are the Bucs questions we chose to answer for this week’s edition.

QUESTION: You have any insight on what the plan is for defensive coaches now that the offensive coordinator is locked up? Any chance we get a new defensive coordinator to work under Todd Bowles, or new defensive coaches in general?

Former Bucs DL coach Joe Cullen – Photo by Cliff Welch/PR

ANSWER: I haven’t been shy in letting my feelings be known to the Bucs organization about some of the defensive coaches. Pewter Report is widely read on PewterReport.com and widely viewed on PewterReportTV, our YouTube channel. I think Todd Bowles can find a better outside linebackers coach, a better safeties coach and I think it’s time nickelbacks coach Rashad Johnson replace Kevin Ross as cornerbacks coach.

Having said that, I don’t know if Bowles will make any changes to his staff at those positions. He played with Ross at Temple and was coached by safeties coach Nick Rapone at Temple, who was Bowles’ safeties coach in college. With Bowles unexpectedly losing good friend Kacy Rodgers to Detroit, he may not want to make any more changes to his defensive staff out of comfortability.

Bowles will turn 62 in 2025 and is nearing retirement. The older men get, the more stuck in their ways they are. I speak from experience at age 52. But I saw the jolt of energy that new secondary coach Mike Tomlin and new linebackers coach Joe Barry brought to the Bucs organization in 2001. Both were in their early 30s at the time.

It would have been easy for 61-year old defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin to replace linebackers coach Lovie Smith and secondary coach Herman Edwards with older, more experienced coaches. But the energy, new ideas and swagger that Tomlin and Barry brought to Tampa Bay blended perfectly with veteran coaches like Kiffin and 52-year old defensive line coach Rod Marinelli.

Marinelli is now 75 and has retired. He and Joe Cullen, who was Tampa Bay’s defensive line coach from 2014-15, are the two best defensive line coaches I’ve ever seen in my 30 years of covering the Bucs. Cullen left in 2016 to become the Ravens defensive line coach until 2021. After a year as Jacksonville’s defensive coordinator under Urban Meyer, he joined Kansas City in 2022 and is currently attempting to three-peat as Super Bowl champions.

I would love to see the Bucs lure Cullen back to Tampa Bay to coach the defensive line. To make that possible, Cullen would need to be made the defensive coordinator in title only, as Bowles would still call the plays, to get him out of his contract with the Chiefs, but that would be my suggestion for Rodgers’ replacement.

QUESTION: Now that the offensive coordinator position is filled (AGAIN!), do you have any insight into who the Bucs target could be for D-Line coach? You said before we need a firestarter and someone who is not a “yes” man. The perfect candidate would be Warren Sapp. He would kick the tires and light the fires for sure. And he would add a spark this defense lacks right now. Your thoughts and wisdom on this.

Bucs legend and Hall of Fame DT Warren Sapp – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

ANSWER: I’m not sure who Todd Bowles is looking at for defensive line coach, but I do know he’s worked with Brentson Buckner before in Arizona during the 2013-14 seasons before Bowles became the New York Jets head coach in 2015. That’s when he reunited with Kacy Rodgers, who served with him as his defensive coordinator and defensive line coach with the Jets. Those two came together to Tampa Bay in 2019 to join Bruce Arians’ staff.

Buckner was hired by the Bucs in 2018 to coach the defensive line, but despite working with Bowles and Arians before, he wasn’t retained because of Bowles’ allegiance to Rodgers. Buckner spent the 2022-23 seasons in Jacksonville as the Jaguars defensive line coach, but wasn’t retained by new head coach Liam Coen. So he’s a free agent and could be an option to team up with Bowles again and make a return to Tampa Bay.

Another possible candidate could be Chiefs defensive line coach Joe Cullen, as I previously mentioned.

As for Warren Sapp, I’m a big fan as he and I walked in the door together in Tampa Bay in 1995 and I covered every minute of his Bucs career. I don’t know that Sapp’s personality would mesh with Bowles’ so I can’t say he would necessarily be a candidate for the defensive line coaching position. But I did see how Sapp greatly improved the defensive line play out in Colorado as a senior quality control analyst on defense working with that unit this past season.

The Buffaloes defensive line went from 11 sacks in 2023 before Sapp to 32 sacks last season under his tutelage. Only six defensive linemen registered at least half a sack in 2023, but that number grew to 10 under Sapp in 2024.

Sapp is a firestarter, and bleeds red and pewter as a Bucs legend. So my guess is that under the right circumstances he would love a shot at coaching Tampa Bay’s defensive line. I’m just not sure if this is the right time with this particular coaching staff.

QUESTION: You’ve been on record many times saying OLBs coach George Edwards isn’t a very good coach and that you weren’t alone in that opinion. What is it exactly he’s not doing right? Is it his coaching methods? Or something else? Keep up the great work!

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles and OLBs coach George Edwards – Photo by: USA Today

ANSWER: Thank you! George Edwards has a long history as a linebackers coach in the NFL. That began in Dallas from 1998-2001 where he was the Cowboys linebackers coach before going to Washington and becoming the Redskins assistant defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in 2002. He spent the 2003 season as the Redskins defensive coordinator before being fired and becoming Cleveland’s linebackers coach in 2004.

He moved on to Miami where he worked as the linebackers coach from 2005-09 before another stint as a defensive coordinator in Buffalo from 2010-11. Then it was back to the Dolphins as a linebackers coach in 2012-13 before a six-year stint as the Vikings defensive coordinator. He returned to Dallas to be a senior defensive assistant from 2020-2022 before Todd Bowles hired him to coach outside linebackers in 2023.

I’ll say this – Edwards has probably forgotten more football than I’ll ever learn. But that won’t stop me from saying that I don’t think he’s good at his job as Tampa Bay’s outside linebackers coach. The reason I say that is because he has never truly coached this position exclusively before. Outside linebackers in Bowles’ scheme are more like defensive ends than true linebackers. There is a big difference in roles and job responsibilities from a player like Lavonte David to a player like Yaya Diaby.

Edwards has not been an effective pass rush coach for the Bucs outside linebackers over the past two years. Tampa Bay’s outside linebackers had 21 combined sacks in 2023, but just 12 last year. Sack numbers fell for Diaby and Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, the two starting edge rushers, in 2024. I don’t think there is any coincidence that there has been an increase in largely ineffective drops into coverage by the outside linebackers since Edwards’ arrival in 2023, either.

I believe the Bucs need a better pass rush coach to help unleash the talent of Diaby and second-round pick Chris Braswell, who had just 1.5 sacks and was slow to develop during his rookie season. Edwards also believed too much in Tryon-Shoyinka for too long and that stunted the development of younger outside linebackers like Braswell, Markees Watts and Jose Ramirez. I have yet to see the evidence that Edwards is one of the better outside linebacker coaches in the league and I think Bowles can find an upgrade if he were to agree and decide to look elsewhere.

QUESTION: I think we really should try and get a solid punter this offseason. It’s such a boring position but I also think a very underrated one. If we had a top 5 punter in the league last year, I think things would have been different. Are there any solid free agent punters?

Bucs P Jack Browning – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

ANSWER: Well, don’t tell Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo that punter is a boring position. Queipo is PR’s punter aficionado. The Bucs have two on their roster in Jack Browning, who was the team’s third punter of the year and finished the season in Tampa Bay, as well as Jake Julien, a record-setting punter from the CFL.

I know the Bucs won’t spend big money on the punter position in free agency with other areas to upgrade that are a higher priority, such as outside linebacker, inside linebacker and cornerback. There really isn’t a punter with a draftable grade this year, and I say that because general manager Jason Licht did spend a fourth-round pick on Jake Camarda in the 2022 NFL Draft.

Having said that, keep an eye on Nebraska punter Brian Buschini as a possible undrafted free agent – or even as a seventh-round pick. He averaged 44.7 yards last year and even completed two passes for 38 yards on successful fake punts. Buschini, who is 6-foot-1, 225 pounds, also handles kickoffs and was a four-year starter. He started one season at Montana before transferring to Nebraska.

QUESTION: What are realistic edge trades or free agent targets? I don’t believe in a Myles Garrett or a Maxx Crosby trade.

ANSWER: I agree with you regarding Cleveland’s Myles Garrett and Las Vegas’ Maxx Crosby. Those are cornerstone pass rushers in those organizations and I don’t see either the Browns or the Raiders trading them away this offseason. The Browns have come out publicly and said that they are not trading Garrett, who is one of the league’s premier pass rushers.

On Saturday in a Pewter Pulse video, I suggested a possible trade with Cincinnati for Trey Hendrickson, who is 30 and is entering a contract year. The Bengals aren’t going to re-sign him and need the cap space for a Ja’Marr Chase extension instead. Hendrickson is an elite pass rusher and is coming off back-to-back seasons with 17.5 sacks. He would not only be a perfect complement to Yaya Diaby, but also bring leadership to a very young outside linebacker room in Tampa Bay.

That’s the only trade scenario that comes to mind right now, but I’ll continue to think about it. As for free agent edge rushers, Khalil Mack is a free agent, but he’ll come with a massive price tag. And his sack total with the Chargers falling from 17 in 2023 to just six in 2024 scares me a bit.

Mack turns 34 on February 22 and at some point in time – sooner rather than later – he’s going to lose a step if he hasn’t already. I don’t remember him doing much at all against Tristan Wirfs and Luke Goedeke in the Bucs’ 40-17 win at Los Angeles last year.

Philadelphia’s Josh Sweat is a younger option at 27, but he’ll also get top dollar in free agency. Sweat is athletic, but more of a power rusher like Diaby, and I think the Bucs could use more of a speed rusher in the vein of Shaq Barrett when he was in his prime.

Haason Reddick is the other big name edge rusher in free agency, but he’s undersized at 6-foot-1, 240 pounds, and seems to be all about the money. The Eagles traded him to the Jets last year and then he held out for the first seven games in a contract dispute before finally taking the field. But Reddick only notched one sack in 10 games in New York after four straight years of double-digit sacks from 2020-2023. Reddick turns 31 in September.