On what would be another shorter practice in comparison to most, the weather was pleasant and cooler than normal with cloud cover the entire day, lingering from the early morning rain as Tampa Bay took the field for practice on Sunday.

As has been the norm, practice began with the special teams unit taking control of one of the practice fields for punt coverage and kickoff return drills as small groups break away to work on fundamental drills.

While Jayden Mickons, Scotty Miller and Cyril Grayson lined up to catch simulated punts, running back Raymond Calais could be seen working on gunner drills with a handful of cornerbacks while the offensive lineman pushed sleds off to the side.

Bucs RB Ronald Jones II – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Running back Ronald Jones II, who suffered an injury during the Bucs’ live scrimmage on Friday was an active participant in practice, but cornerback Carlton Davis was held out after injuring his shoulder the same day. The absence was likely precautionary as head coach Bruce Arians stated that Davis would be fine in his post-practice press conference.

In addition to Davis, left guard Ali Marpet and rookie wide receiver Tyler Johnson missed practice as well.

As the special teams work ended, individual position groups then came together as a whole with their positional coaches, with the exception of the quarterbacks and running backs who headed to midfield and worked on exchanges for different run plays.

By where the media was standing, assistant wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El ran the receivers through drills that focused on catching the ball through contact along the sidelines.

After a few minutes the quarterbacks and running backs made their way over to the end zone to work on timing drills along the goal line with the wide receivers.

Following individual drills the Bucs broke into their first 11-on-11 period where the offense was relatively successful, something that surely wasn’t indicative of the day as a whole.

“Defense made the plays all day,” Arians said. “I don’t know if the offense made any plays. Might have been reading their press clippings that ‘they’re so good’, because they didn’t show up today.”

The beginning of the 11-on-11 period was primarily non-contact run plays, with Jones and LeSean McCoy splitting carries with the first team offense. Backup quarterback Blaine Gabbert threw the lone pass of the segment, an incompletion.

There was one play in particular that stood out in this run drill between Rakeeem Nunez-Roches and rookie running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn. It was Vaughn who had a nice five to six yard run to the outside on the righthand side of the line, and Nacho sprinted from his position to make the hit on Vaughn. We’ve talked a lot about Nacho’s motor, which was shown here on his willingness to put in the effort to chase down Vaughn. It was also a positive to see Vaughn with a productive run after having a slow start to camp.

Then moving into the pass-heavy portion of 11-on-11 drills, Brady’s first pass was a deep shot that easily traveled 30 to 40 yards down the field for the speedy Scotty Miller, but the ball fell just out of his reach with safety D’Cota Dixon right on his tail in tight coverage.

Chris Godwin had arguably the best day on the offensive side of the ball, bringing in an out-route from Brady before the Bucs’ new quarterback found O.J. Howard over the middle of the field for a big gain.

As the second-team offense came on to the field, cornerback Jamel Dean got the defense their first interception of the day – and his first of two on the day – when he undercut a pass from Gabbert to Grayson along the sideline. Dixon then got back in on the action, going through tight end Tanner Hudson for a pass breakup.

With the Bucs reportedly bringing in two additional kickers for competition, Ryan Succop and Cody Parkey, it surely puts some additional pressure on Elliott Fry and the Bucs’ fifth-round pick last year Matt Gay as they battle it out.

In their daily kicking battle, Fry missed two of his kicks and finished the day 3/5 while Gay missed just one lone kick, the longest attempt of the day on the kickers’ final try. Fry missed his fifth kick as well.

Following the kickers the Bucs moved back into team drills, running a seven-on-seven period as the offensive line moved over to the other practice field.

This was likely the offense’s most successful period of Tampa Bay’s Sunday practice, coming as no surprise with no pass rush.

From the offensive and defensive line session of practice, they were going live with the pass rush with the first team on both sides facing each other. There were a lot of promising things to see during these reps, especially rookie tackle offensive tackle, Tristan Wirfs. The first-round pick was tested right out the gate, facing Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul twice in his first three reps. He held steady against Barrett even after he went to his patented spin move, and followed that up by knocking Pierre-Paul to the ground, though he was aided by a slip, which Pierre-Paul was not happy about.

The defensive line started to take over from there as Barrett beat Donovan Smith by using his speed to get around him. Will Gholston then built upon his already impressive camp by ripping inside past Aaron Stinnie, who was in for Marpet, and getting to the backfield quickly.

After a couple of more reps that went in favor of the defense, assistant coach and run game coordinator Harold Goodwin could be seen laying into the offensive line using an expletive filled sentiment about moving their feet quicker. It was just another example of how the defense dominated against the offense on the day.

On the first play of the red zone period Brady again went deep, this time nearly being picked off by safety Jordan Whitehead, but that wouldn’t deter the long-time veteran. Brady then went down the sideline for Godwin who, despite having the route jumped by cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting, made an adjustment at the catch point to cut off the second-year defensive back and come up with the reception.

Moving over to work in the red zone, Whitehead would get his revenge for the near interception quickly, however, as he intercepted Brady on the first play of the Bucs’ red zone period. On the first play, with Mazzi Wilkins in coverage, Miller bolted across the field from Brady’s left and looked up for the lofted touch pass toward the corner of the end zone, only for Whitehead to come sailing in for the pick.

Brady then hit tight end Cam Brate for a touchdown on the second play and that’s when it really started to unfold for the Bucs’ offense.

The Bucs then moved into a drill backed up to the end zone. Prior to the first play, with a hard count from Brady, right guard Alex Cappa jumped for a false start penalty and Arians kicked him out of the drill.

“Yeah, that [penalty] was the dumbest one of all,” Arians said. “Because we just stood there and said we’re gonna use a hard count and we always use a hard count coming off the one. That just showed where their minds were on offense, because Cap’s usually very dependable.”

HC Bruce Arians –
Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

On the very next play McCoy took a handoff up the middle, had the ball punched loose for a fumble and Arians reacted by sending the entire first-team offense off of the field.

A few plays later, with the second-team offense and defense on the field, rookie Khalil Davis broke through the line and smothered Dare Ogunbowale for no gain.

The Bucs then finished their practice with a final red zone/goal line period where the defense solidified their dominating day. On the first play of the period, Brady’s pass was intercepted in the back of the end zone by Dean on an incredibly athletic play to spin his body around for the pick while landing with his feet in bounds.

Brady’s next pass was broken up by Murphy-Bunting before the second-team took the field.

Gabbert’s first pass was broken up by rookie linebacker Chapelle Russell and his second was knocked out of Brate’s hands at the last second as Dixon flew in to make yet another play on the ball. The first-team came back out.

Brady threw a quick pass for Miller that was broken up by veteran cornerback Ryan Smith and finally, on the sixth play of the period, the offense was able to break through as Brady was forced to hold on to the ball for an extended period – a trend on Sunday – before finding Godwin in the back of the end zone for a nice touchdown play.

The day then finished with one last score on a slant route from Brady to Watson.