Fiercest Camp Battles, Tykee Smith To Safety

Bucs S Tykee Smith – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

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Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds answers your questions from the @PewterReport X account this week in the Bucs Mailbag. Submit your question to SR each week via X using the hashtag #PRMailbag.  Here are the Bucs questions we chose to answer for this week’s edition.

QUESTION: What’s going to be the fiercest training camp competition?

ANSWER: This is a great question, and I think it depends on what your definition of fiercest is. To me the wide receiver battle is going to be very competitive and very interesting. Obviously Mike Evans and Chris Godwin have their places secured atop the depth chart. It will be interesting to see how the battle for WR3 between Jalen McMillan and Emeka Egbuka, this year’s first-round pick, will pan out. I do think Egbuka will play more slot receiver whereas McMillan will play more flanker, so it won’t necessarily be a true, straight-up battle in that sense.

But then the real battle will be taking place at WR5 and WR6 – if the team keeps six receivers. Rookie Tez Johnson, second-year receiver Kameron Johnson, Sterling Shepard, Trey Palmer, Rakim Jarrett, Ryan Miller, Garrett Greene and Dennis Houston will all be fighting for one or two roster spots. More than half of those players have spent time on an NFL roster before, so the talent is definitely there. No matter what happens or how it shakes out, the practice squad will be loaded with receiver talent.

The two other positions that will have some fierce competition will be outside linebacker and cornerback. Haason Reddick and Yaya Diaby will be the starting edge rushers, but who will be OLB3? Will that be Chris Braswell, last year’s second-round pick, or David Walker, this year’s fourth-round pick? Anthony Nelson will definitely make the team as OLB5 at the very least due to his experience. Is there any room for either Jose Ramirez or Markees Watts? It could be the last stand for either – or both – in camp this year.

Cornerback is also going to be a really interesting battle. Can Jamel Dean hang on to his starting job by making more plays on the ball or will rookie Benjamin Morrison take it during training camp and the preseason? Will Jacob Parrish emerge as the starting nickelback? Can Bryce Hall make the team again this with the arrival of Morrison, Parrish and Kindle Vildor? Can Josh Hayes stick around as a gunner once again? So many questions at cornerback this summer.

QUESTION: How do you feel about Tykee Smith being moved to safety? Any reservations about the position change?

ANSWER: I feel really good about Tykee Smith moving from nickelback to safety. Smith played some safety at Georgia, so he has plenty of experience doing it. There is not a whole lot of difference between playing strong safety and in the slot in Todd Bowles defense. Antoine Winfield Jr. will also see some time in the box, but for the most part, Winfield will be playing free safety, especially in Cover 1 and Cover 3 defenses.

Smith has proven to be a very good, aggressive tackler in the box and near the line of scrimmage. He’s also a good blitzer from the slot and has proven to be a turnover machine, leading the team with three forced fumbles and two interceptions as a rookie. The reason why he’s being moved to safety is to get him on the field for nearly 100% of the plays as a full-time defensive back, rather than play around 75% of the time as a nickel cornerback.

What I like about this situation the most is the fact that Smith went to head coach and defensive play-caller Todd Bowles this offseason and requested that he move to strong safety to replace Jordan Whitehead. The reason? He wanted more playing time so that he could make more plays. That shows me – and the team – that Smith has a ton of confidence in himself and his ability.

Smith is going to be an upper echelon safety sooner rather than later, and I see Pro Bowl potential for him in the very near future. So does the team.

QUESTION: Here is something for the Fourth Of July holiday. If you had to replace George Washington with a current or former Buccaneers coach, who would it be and why?

ANSWER: Wow! What a great, unique question. So there are really three versions of George Washington, right? The first president of the United States of America, the general in the Continental Army and the farmer in Virginia. I think you’re more interested in either President Washington or General Washington given that it was just Independence Day on Friday.

I would say for General Washington that either Tony Dungy or Jon Gruden would be the ideal replacement. Both men had great coaching staffs full of tremendous assistants – just like Washington had a great group of generals in the American Revolution like Nathanael Greene, Horatio Gates, Henry Knox, Daniel Morgan, and Anthony Wayne. Dungy was a defensive genius and Gruden was on offensive mastermind.

Both men were great leaders, too. Dungy led Tampa Bay out of a decade of darkness and transformed the Yuccaneers into the Buccaneers. Gruden led the Bucs to their first Super Bowl and won it, in addition to winning three division titles. Both Dungy and Gruden were great motivators in their own ways.

As for President Washington, I think both Bruce Arians and Todd Bowles have a presidential quality about them. The boisterous Arians might be more Teddy Roosevelt or Donald Trump than George Washington due to his feisty nature. But Arians was a great leader of men and a delegator, especially since he didn’t call plays in Tampa Bay. He presided over the Bucs, managed some big personalities during his time in Tampa Bay and led the team to a Super Bowl championship.

Bowles has a steady hand for his leadership style – perhaps the steadiest hand Tampa Bay has ever had. He’s a defensive mastermind in own his right, but has also picked two – perhaps three – great offensive coordinators, too. Bowles seems very presidential to me in an even keel fashion like Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama are portrayed to have been while in office.

QUESTION: I keep hearing that we would do well to extend Baker Mayfield sooner due to him being a bargain at $33 million per year. What’s the real difference in life between $150 million and $200 million? Don’t NFL players know they risk keeping their teams from getting/keeping other good players and pricing out the fans?

Remember Tristan Wirfs was about to sign when suddenly it wasn’t enough because of someone else and it’s already $1,000 almost for a family of four with mid-range tickets to see a game. I’m a fan but I find myself shaking my head.

ANSWER: I understand that a $100 million contract like Baker Mayfield’s that pays him $33 million per year seems so out of touch for the average fan. And yes, as the salary cap goes up on an annual basis, so do players’ salaries, and unfortunately, tickets go up as well to pay for it. As much as NFL players make I think what baseball players and NBA players make, which are making more than their football counterparts generally speaking, is insane.

Football is a much more grueling and physically taxing sport than baseball for sure. And some basketball players have guaranteed contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars where only a few NFL players have that luxury.

I do think the Bucs have had some players like Tom Brady, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin who do take some deals that are less than market values in order to help the team. Tristan Wirfs and Antoine Winfield Jr. have been at or near the top of the league at their respective positions in terms of salaries, but even Baker Mayfield didn’t take a top-of-market deal during his last contract.

Mayfield will likely be paid around $50 million per season on his next contract next offseason as long as he remains healthy and productive. But I don’t think he’ll take such a massive deal where it will negatively impact the team. That’s the great thing about this Bucs team – it truly is a team. There hasn’t been a contract holdout in such a long time outside of Devin White’s offseason antics in the spring of 2023, which is great news for Tampa Bay.

QUESTION: I know you have been asked by the Buccaneers to list your top 50 all-time Bucs and you will share your list on PewterReport.com incrementally. Without spoiling it, outside of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Lavonte David, how many on the current roster have made your list? 

ANSWER: That’s a great question. And yes, I was honored to share my top 5o all-time Bucs list with the team. I’ll be revealing those 50 players starting this week in reverse order, finishing up with the top 20 next week in stories on PewterReport.com. The Pewter Reporters will also be drafting our own top Buccaneers teams for a future Pewter Report Podcast too, so look for that later in July.

I will say that I counted up the number of Super Bowl champions – either from the 2002 team or the 2020 team – and I wound up with 25. So half of my list has Super Bowl Buccaneers on it.

To answer your question, I have eight current members of the Bucs 2025 roster on my top 50 list, including the ones you listed – wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and linebacker Lavonte David. Can you name them? The other part of this equation is not only who I have from the current Tampa Bay team on my list, but also where they rank. Stay tuned to PewterReport.com to find out.