What do the Bucs have against nose tackles? May 22 2014, 4:14pm 
I was rooting for Louis Nix in the draft. When he fell out of the 1st round I was salivating. Sure he's a rare size Nose Tackle, but also one who has showed plenty of burst in pursuit when given a bit of space. I thought...Lovie is going to put his stamp on this team with a defensive pick. I thought...Leslie had the Williams Wall with the Vikings....I thought...we've got 5 DEs pretty set on the roster, but only three DTs and one of them is never going to be more than a one gap space holder. McCoy in every play and the other two can rotate with the added benefit of being able to move McDonald over if something happens to McCoy. Well obviously no team liked Nix as much as I did, and I don't necessarily want to get into a whole thing about him specifically, but we haven't often put much value on that position. We spent a first round pick on Booger and that was a key cog in our glory years team. I suppose we argue that Price was an attempt at that guy recently, but I always kind of interpreted the Double, double down of DTs and Receivers in that draft as sort of a "...we have nothing at these position groups and we can't afford to come away with nothing. So we take two of each and if both work out - great. If not then we at least have one." Price was a rush tackle like McCoy, not a real NT. When is the last time we had anything resembling a real NT on the field? Don't tell me it can't work with Tampa style D Schemes because Leslie did it with Pat Williams who was already in his 30s when he joined the Vikings. If the basic idea of our scheme is to blitz less and generate pressure with Defensive front, then all four of those guys should be premium talent positions. There just aren't many legit 320+ guys with quick feet certainly, but we never seem to target them when they come along. Why? I've noticed that what a lot of teams do to massive NTs is just leave them unblocked when they're moving the play away from them. Any type of sweep or rollout play they just take that blocker and pull them out to lead block or double team someone else. Obviously we can't use a guy that has no capacity to run in pursuit, at least in a short area, but I want you to imagine McCoy next Wilfork in his prime and tell me that wouldn't transform our franchise. They would blow up the interior of the pocket on every play. The DEs would be better, the secondary would be better.
http://www.bucsnation.com/2014/5/22/5742610/what-do-we-have-against-nose-tackles