The Bucs have officially finished signing all members of their 2026 draft class, with the team announcing Thursday afternoon that second-round pick Josiah Trotter has put pen to paper on his rookie contract.

Tampa Bay got to work quickly on signing its 2026 draftees, first inking first-round pick Rueben Bain Jr. to his rookie deal May 7. That same day, the Bucs announced that they had signed fourth-round pick Keionte Scott, fifth-round picks DeMonte Capehart and Billy Schrauth and sixth-round pick Bauer Sharp to their first NFL contracts, too. And upon his arrival to Tampa for rookie mini-camp after his graduation from Georgia State, third-round pick Ted Hurst signed as well.

That left Josiah Trotter, the Bucs’ second-round pick, as the only member of their 2026 draft class who had remained unsigned. That wasn’t a surprise, as Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo wrote about earlier this month. 

Bucs ILB Josiah Trotter – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Negotiations over guarantees have held things up for second-round draft picks over the last couple of years, with the Texans giving second-rounder Jayden Higgins a fully guaranteed four-year contract at pick No. 34 in 2025, making him the first second-round pick to receive a fully guaranteed deal.

The Browns matched that with pick No. 33, Carson Schwesinger, which “broke the dam,” as Queipo put it. The NFL world watched pick No. 40 – quarterback Tyler Shough of the Saints – as he was the presumed QB1 for New Orleans after Derek Carr’s retirement. That presumably gave him the leverage necessary to get his own fully guaranteed deal, and it worked out that way. From pick No. 33 all the way through Shough at No. 40, it was guaranteed contracts for everyone. Ultimately, that stopped at No. 41.

Each pick from there received less and less in terms of guaranteed money, and by the time it got to Rams tight end Terrance Ferguson at pick No. 46, that deal settled at 82.8% guaranteed, with just 23% of Year 4 guaranteed.

Josiah Trotter, who was the No. 45 pick this year, was then presumably set to receive more than that given the bump in percentages for other second-rounders in the 2026 Draft. Fellow inside linebacker C.J. Allen, pick No. 53 to the Colts, saw a jump of 8.3 percentage points of total guarantee over last year’s No. 53 pick, with the structure of the deal fundamentally rewritten. As Queipo wrote, three years fully guaranteed wasn’t on the table for second-round picks below pick No. 51 last summer. But that changed in 2026.

Then, cornerback Avieon Terrell, the No. 48 overall pick to the Falcons, got a fully guaranteed deal last week. That set the precedent for Trotter to get his deal fully guaranteed as well, and sure enough, he has signed his contract a week later. Pewter Report can confirm that the contract is fully guaranteed, as expected.

Bucs Expect Big Things From Second-Round Pick Josiah Trotter

The Bucs have high hopes for Josiah Trotter, who only just turned 21 last month but got plenty of valuable experience at the collegiate level between his freshman year at West Virginia and his sophomore season with Missouri.

In his one season with the Mountaineers, he played 12 games and racked up 92 tackles (36 solo), four tackles for loss, a half-sack, an interception and two passes defensed. After transferring to Missouri for the 2025 season, he played in 12 games for the Tigers and totaled 84 tackles (43 solo), 13 tackles for loss, two sacks and a pass defensed.

Bucs ILB Josiah Trotter – Photo courtesy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Now, after being selected in the second round by the Bucs, he’s set to assume a role right away in the middle of Todd Bowles’ Tampa Bay defense. With the retirement of the legendary Lavonte David, there was a massive void left at inside linebacker for this team for the first time in a long while. The signing of veteran Alex Anzalone helped begin to fill it, and now it’s Trotter who will be a big part of things at the position as well.

A true MIKE linebacker, Trotter’s instincts are what stand out and were a major reason why Tampa Bay was drawn to him. He reads his keys and diagnoses what’s going to happen before it happens, which helps him wreak havoc in the backfield. And while his coverage ability has been questioned, he’s confident in what he can do on that front, and so are the Bucs. They believe wholeheartedly that he has the foot speed, instincts and open-field tackling ability to thrive when he’s asked to cover, which wasn’t something he was often asked to do at Missouri.

More than anything, the Bucs like that Trotter is a true, old-school type of linebacker who very well could still have his best football ahead of him given his age, physical profile, work ethic and existing experience to draw from.

Now that he has officially signed his first pro contract, it’s full speed ahead toward OTAs, mini-camp, training camp and then his first real NFL action come August.

– Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo contributed to this story.