Bucs S Shilo Sanders – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

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

QUESTION: Do you think that Shilo Sanders has a legit chance to make the roster? And who could he replace?

ANSWER: Do I think Shilo Sanders, an undrafted free agent from Colorado, has a legit chance of making the Bucs’ 2025 roster? I think it’s an uphill climb right now. The reason is that the Bucs will likely keep four or five safeties as former All-Pro Antoine Winfield Jr. and Tykee Smith are the starters with Christian Izien and Kaevon Merriweather on deck as experienced backups who have at least two years in Todd Bowles’ system.

If Tampa Bay keeps five safeties, that certainly increases Sanders’ chances of making the team. Yet it seems like fellow undrafted free agent J.J. Roberts has the inside track for that spot over Sanders at this moment. I even featured Roberts in a recent Pewter Pulse video as the Bucs “super sleeper” on defense. Roberts had a draftable grade, unlike Sanders, and was in for an official 30 visit prior to the draft whereas Sanders was not. Plus, the team also gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars in guaranteed money that Sanders didn’t get.

Bucs S Shilo Sanders – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Roberts is also faster and more athletic, and has the ability to cross train between nickelback, strong safety and free safety, whereas Sanders is primarily just a strong safety and a free safety candidate. Versatility matters a lot in the NFL, but so does communication – especially at the safety position. And Sanders is loud and a very good communicator, who isn’t shy on the football field. He has shown that he’s got a gregarious, likeable, coachable personality and that helps.

But for Sanders –and for Roberts and the other safeties that will be competing this August – it’s going to come down to what happens when the pads come on. How physical is Sanders, and how sure of a tackler will he be? If he shows well in this area, especially on special teams, he could make the team. Who would be the most likely player that he could beat out? Well, likely Roberts if the rookie from Marshall doesn’t show up when the pads come on, or Merriweather, who is more of a strong safety without much versatility.

QUESTION: With the offense focusing on the vertical passing this year, should we be worried about more interceptions from Baker Mayfield and possibly more turnover-worthy plays from him?

ANSWER: Yes, there is a possibility that with more shots downfield in the passing game in 2025 there could be more interceptions coming from Baker Mayfield. But there were a handful of fluky interceptions that Mayfield threw in 2024, so all 16 picks weren’t on him.

Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo, our resident stats guy, tells me that two of Mayfield’s interceptions came behind the line of scrimmage and another two came from the line of scrimmage to 10 yards. So that’s four picks that came at point blank range that could be eliminated with a bit more focus from Mayfield and his targets this season.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today

Eight of Mayfield’s interceptions came from the intermediate range, which was 10 yards to 19 yards. That’s the bread-and-butter area of the Bucs’ passing game, which wasn’t too vertical in nature last year. Yet Mayfield only threw 12 touchdowns on 146 passes in the 10-yard to 19-yard range, while completing 65% of his throws. Mayfield only threw 52 passes beyond 20 yards last year, and four of them were intercepted while seven were touchdowns. So Mayfield was kind of feast or famine on passes beyond 20 yards. And he only completed 38.5% of his passes beyond 20 yards in 2024.

No matter who the quarterback is, the further the pass down the field the less of chance the ball has to be completed. That’s just part of playing the quarterback position, and why the league has gone to more of a shorter passing game with a higher completion percentage in recent years. And why passing attacks like the Sean McVay-Rams system that the Bucs imported in 2024 with Liam Coen’s arrival have become more en vogue.

So there could be more turnover-worthy plays coming from Mayfield with more downfield shots expected. What he needs to do to keep his interceptions at 16 or less in 2025 is reduce the number of picks on short throws and hope that he doesn’t have some of the fluky interceptions he was subjected to last year.

QUESTION: Could we expect the white throwback uniform in Week 3, since the theme is our 50th season? Or most likely will it be a road alternate uniform?

ANSWER: There is certainly a chance that the Bucs could unveil a road throwback uniform in 2025. It would certainly make sense to do so in the team’s 50th season – and to do so at Seattle, as both the Bucs and the Seahawks entered the league together in 1976. If Seattle and Tampa Bay both wore some original throwback uniforms together in that game it would have even more significance.

From 1976-1991 the Bucs’ road uniforms were white jerseys and white pants with the white Bucco Bruce helmets. In 1992 the Bucs introduced orange pants to the uniform and wore white jerseys and orange pants on the road – and sometimes at home early in the season before breaking out the orange jerseys and white pants later in the year.

Former Bucs FB Mike Alstott – Photo by: USA Today

So if the Bucs wanted to really pay homage to the 1976 team, the Bucs would likely wear white pants and white jerseys for that game rather than orange pants. But if Tampa Bay wants to tap into the more recent throwbacks it might wear the orange pants with the white jerseys.

There is also a new NFL rule that says that teams can were alternate uniforms up to four times per year now. So there is a chance that the team could surprise us by possibly wearing a white-on-white throwback in Week 3 and then maybe finding another road game for a white-on-orange throwback uniform look.

QUESTION: With this being our 50th year, what’s your biggest NFL snub to Tampa Bay? Mine is after winning our first Super Bowl, we had to open the season on the road in Philly in 2003? I know why – Philly was opening up its new stadium. But since the early 1990s we were the only Super Bowl winner to do so.

ANSWER: This is an interesting question, and I really like your example of the biggest snub to happen to the Bucs. I do remember when that happened and the team was not happy about opening up the 2003 season on Monday Night Football in Philadelphia. The other interesting thing about the Bucs winning their first Super Bowl during the 2002 season was the fact that the team only had one week between the NFC Championship Game win in Philly and the Super Bowl in San Diego, which was the next Sunday against the Raiders.

Former Bucs draft pick Bo Jackson – who never played for Tampa Bay

Typically the NFL has two weeks between the conference championships and the Super Bowl instead of one week. Not that it made a difference for Jon Gruden and Tampa Bay, as the Bucs demolished the Raiders, 48-21, to bring the first Lombardi Trophy back to Tampa Bay.

I think the biggest snub the franchise has ever encountered wasn’t necessarily from the league. It was from Bo Jackson, the Heisman Trophy-winning running back. Jackson was drafted first overall by Tampa Bay in 1986 and he opted not to play for the Bucs after owner Hugh Culverhouse flew Jackson to meet with the team before the draft and that was deemed to be an NCAA violation and caused him to be ineligible to play baseball for Auburn in the spring semester.

Jackson, who was a dual-sport star, was enraged that the Bucs cost him his eligibility and took it out on Tampa Bay by not playing for the franchise. Jackson was told by the team that the private plane ride would not make him ineligible for baseball, but he felt the Bucs lied to him in an effort to put baseball in the rear-view mirror and play NFL football instead. So, Tampa Bay blew the No. 1 overall pick and missed out on a generational talent. That has to be the biggest snub in franchise history.