FAB 2. Bucs Love Wirfs’ Competitiveness, Readiness

Bucs general manager Jason Licht couldn’t contain how happy he was to come away with one of the top offensive tackles in the 2020 NFL Draft in Iowa’s Tristan Wirfs in the first round. Right tackle was a position of need for Tampa Bay, which hasn’t re-signed 34-year old veteran Demar Dotson, who has been a starter for nearly a decade. The Bucs wanted to get younger and better – especially in the running game – at right tackle and Wirfs will compete with newly signed veteran Joe Haeg for the right to replace Dotson.

Bucs RT Tristan Wirfs – Photo courtesy of Iowa

Wirfs, a junior who made Hawkeyes history by becoming the first true freshman to start at for Kirk Ferentz, had a jaw-dropping showing at the NFL Scouting Combine where he ran a 4.85 in the 40-yard dash while measuring 6-foot-5 and weighing 320 pounds. His 36.5-inch vertical jump and 10-foot-1-inch broad jump were some of the best numbers ever recorded for offensive linemen in Indianapolis.

But it wasn’t just Wirfs measureables or his second-team All-American honors or his Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year award that impressed the Bucs. It was as much Wirfs’ personality and competitiveness as it was his football prowess.

“Everyone gets so caught up on the athletic talents, and we can touch on those too, but I was more drawn to the person to start with – the achiever,” Spytek said. “Go back and look at his high school career and he was a high achiever in three different sports. You’ve heard a lot of college coaches when they go to recruit they look for versatile athletes in high school and that makes them better football players, and I agree with that. Look at Tristian, he was a state champ in the discus, shot [put] and one of the more decorated throwers in the history of that state. Then you look at the state championship [in wrestling] and what he had to do to make weight and accomplish that – even though he had already been offered [a scholarship] by Iowa. I think a lot of kids probably don’t do that and just go play football.

“Then he plays early and plays both left and right tackle and it was pretty easy to see the athletic ability on film. I’m pretty sure you watched it, too. Then he goes to the Combine and you hear the numbers and they’re big-time numbers, but I’m not that surprised. He’s just a good, humble kid from a solid program at Iowa where they develop the person and the player very, very well. Anthony Nelson had very good things to say about him. There are a lot of things to like at a premium position where we had a need. It made a lot of sense.”

“The obvious thing is the testing and all of the workout numbers – his speed, vertical and explosiveness,” Biehl said. “That’s easy to see. But I think there is something to be said for playing at Iowa and playing in a pro-style offense and seeing him be in a three-point stance and actually come off the ball as a run blocker as opposed to being in a two-point stance and just kind of shielding guys. We got to see him do a lot of things he’ll do in our league – and he did them well. He’s a smart kid with all of the traits, he’s coachable, loves the game and his teammates that should enable him to fit in well with us – and quickly.”

The fact that Wirfs was able to see the field so early as a true freshman is an indicator that he could come in a start right away as a rookie in the NFL.

“It says something about him and his God-given ability to play so early,” Biehl said. “A lot of freshmen when they step on campus aren’t ready to contribute physically. Tristan was one of those guys that was developed coming out of high school, so that enabled him to do that, but he also had to do things the right way and earn the trust of the coaches at an early age.”

I reached out to several members of the Bucs’ brass after Wirfs was picked and they were shocked that of all the tackles that fell to them it was the Iowa stud. One source told me last Thursday that the team didn’t think it had any chance at landing Wirfs – until he actually slid to No. 13.

“You never know how the draft is going to go,” Spytek said. “You have to be prepared. I probably would have guessed that we would have one tackle left when we would have picked, and if we would have stayed at 14 we might have had zero left to pick from. We knew it was a good group of tackles – everybody knew that there was a top four and that was unanimous. But what wasn’t unanimous was the order of those. You could talk to 10 different teams and get 10 totally different orders.”

Wirfs wasn’t Tampa Bay’s fourth-rated tackle for sure. That was Louisville’s Mekhi Becton, who was selected by the New York Jets with the 11th overall pick. Some members of the Bucs assumed that it would be Becton that would have slid to them. Instead, it was the higher-rated Wirfs.

The Buccaneers couldn’t be happier.