All-Twenty Tuesday: Most Underrated Buccaneers

S Keith Tandy

That’s right, folks: The Tandy Man.

Keith Tandy, to me, is likely the most underrated player on the Buccaneers roster. Going into 2017, after coming off a great finish to 2016, in which he recorded four interceptions in the second half of the season, I figured that Tandy would be slotted to start the year as the incumbent safety and the one who had the longest leash when it came to potential job loss. Then the team signed J.J. Wilcox. Then the team drafted Justin Evans. Then the team signed T.J. Ward. All of a sudden it was a very crowded safety room.

Tandy ended up starting just three games in 2017, even with sub-par safety play through the other members of the position. A back injury that Tandy dealt with throughout the year had something to do with that, but even when he was healthy it just seemed like Tandy was never considered, and I’m not sure why.

Tandy was drafted by the Buccaneers in 2012, so he’s been around a while. He wasn’t ready to start when he was younger in his career, but he even said himself after his 2016 season that the time he had to sit back and learn made him ready for the impact he had in 2016.

As shown in the clip above, Tandy’s savviness is what made such an impact in 2016, and I’m not sure why that wasn’t prioritized more in 2017. Tandy isn’t the fastest or most fluid defensive back, but there are a handful of plays on the ball he was able to make in 2017 that I haven’t seen a safety in Tampa Bay make in a long time.

What makes things even more odd for me, and a reason why Tandy is under the radar, is that his skill set, at this point in his career, and the reason why he was so successful in 2016, is what the Bucs traditional defense relies on. The Bucs haven’t played a very aggressive style of coverage of the last two seasons. Their go-to scheme is quarters coverage, which involves cutting the deep portion of the field into fourths, and when you play that kind of coverage, you have to rely heavily on preparation and recognition more than say natural athleticism and strength like you would in man coverage.

That’s what Tandy did to make an impact when he got his chances to start in 2016, especially in that game against the Panthers.

Even when he was asked to take on more responsibly is a center fielder in cover 3 schemes (where the two cornerbacks and one safety are the three deep players, as shown above), Tandy still did a good job of reading the quarterback’s eyes and breaking on the ball to get where it was for the takeaway.

See, to me, that’s what’s always been in the back of my mind when I’ve wonder why Tandy didn’t get a better chance to start in 2017. For the last two years, he’s been the only safety to make plays on the ball. The Bucs let Bradley McDougald walk in free agency because he didn’t make enough impact on the ball, and they’ve tried to replace Chris Conte every single year with a better starter, even though they keep him around for familiarity. No one has made an impact on the ball like Tandy did in the later half of that 2016 season.

That game-winning interception Tandy had against the Saints in 2016 was picture-perfect quarters coverage by a defensive back who clearly did his homework. To get that kind of jump on the ball, especially against Drew Brees, that exact route has to be in your head — Tandy almost broke on it too much and over-ran it.

With Conte and Evans back, I don’t really see Tandy getting a starting gig, in reality, but I do wonder why not. If you ask me, Tandy’s the most underrated player on the roster. He quite literally saved Dirk Koetter and Mike Smith’s jobs by getting the interceptions and therefore sealing some wins down the stretch in 2016. If the team swung on two of those games the other way, say they lost the Chargers game and the Saints game, those coaches would have been gone after 2017.

WR Bobo Wilson

Second-year man Jesus “Bobo” Wilson is my next choice as one of the most under rated players on this Buccaneers roster.

After a shaky storyline on the show Hard Knocks where Wilson wasn’t even in Tampa Bay when they asked him to return to the practice squad following training camp, Wilson remained with the Buccaneers and even made his only catch of the season count as a touchdown against the Panthers on Christmas Eve.

During Hard Knocks, there was a small detail of Wilson’s story that I took note of and noticed more and more throughout the year, and that was his connection with fellow wide receiver DeSean Jackson. Jackson was seen making some comments on Wilson, how he loved his competitive nature and how Wilson reminded Jackson of himself in a lot of ways. He said something along the lines of “they don’t make many like us.”

I think that’s true if you paid attention to the details of Wilson’s season and his game.

Wilson gets bummed out when he missed a catch or doesn’t get thrown the ball, and he celebrates when good plays happen. He shows passion, and if you ask me, every good receiver needs that. Receivers, more than most positions in football, need some hype to them; they need to be expressive. If I don’t physically see the confidence coming off of you, I don’t really want you playing receiver for my team.

Wilson has it, and I’ve noticed.

Wilson also brings the Bucs something they don’t have among the roster outside of DeSean Jackson and that is an elite level of short area explosiveness. Wilson is fast, but he’s not just straight-line fast; he’s explosive. He can really get in and out of his breaks, as shown above, and in the touchdown he had against Carolina. That is a unique skillset.

I think Wilson needs to be a frontrunner to make this team as their fifth receiver because of what he brings to the table, and because of a potential that has barely even tapped into. He could be their eventual slot replacement for Adam Humphries, if the team moves on from Humphries after this season due to a his likely rising price tag.

K Trevor Moore

Alright, I know what you’re thinking: This guy’s an idiot.

But follow me!

I’m not talking about guys I know for sure are going to make the roster, and I’m not even caping for Moore completely in that way, in this instance. But I would like to point out how impressed I was with Moore over the OTA period and Mini-Camp.

Moore has missed just two kicks in all of the practices that we’ve seen. One went off the post, and the other was a 50-yarder they asked him to kick cold. But, on the flip side, he’s also made a 50-yarder on three separate occasions.

The Bucs gave fellow kicker Chandler Catanzaro a three-year, $9.75 million dollar deal this offseason, which made him one of the ten highest paid kickers in the NFL. Catanzaro has had his highs during his NFL career like kicking 60 and 57 yarders, and he also made the first 15 kicks of his career while in Arizona. But, he’s also had some low lights, just like all kickers have. He’s been through some bad streaks and has jumped around the league because of it.

Confidence is everything with kickers. Everyone has the leg. That’s why a lot of starting kickers in the NFL are undrafted guys. There’s so many who can get the ball through the uprights. What’s worth the money is what’s upstairs in your head and how well you handle pressure.

In practice, I’m just going to say it, Moore’s been the better kicker. Moore, who has a compact kicking swing, has kicked the ball harder, faster, further and more accurate than Catazaro has, knowing that all the pressure is on him to even be considered to make the practice squad. Catanzaro missed the first 48-yard field goal needed to end practice early on the final day of Mini-Camp. They gave him another shot and he nailed it, but you don’t get second chances in the NFL.

If you ask me, if they asked Moore to kick it first, I think he would have made it.

Moore’s career long at North Texas was 51 yards, as shown above, but that had the leg for 55 yards. And it’s not even how far you can kick it. Those long ones are nice, but if you have the ice in your veins to get it down between 30-48 yards, you’ll have a long career in this league.

When I watched Moore kick during the offseason program, he was the more confident kicker. He just was. The Bucs owe Catanzaro $3.75 million dollars this season, so Moore isn’t going to take his roster spot. But maybe down the road he get a real shot as a starter. We’ll see what happens in training camp, but from what I’ve seen, this kid can kick – it just might not be for the Buccaneers.