Looking forward to 2011, the Bucs have serious Depth and only 2 glaring needs.

Editor’s Note: Excited about the 2010 season? This offseason you will get to see Video features like “Top ten Bucs of 2010” that show highlights of the ten best players on the Bucs, and “4 plays that cost the Bucs the playoffs” which will be up this week. 2011 will be an unprecedented year of Videos on Bucstop.com!

Now that the 2010 season is prematurely over with the Bucs playing golf while the Seahawks are preparing for a home game while sweeping videos of their loss to the Bucs under the carpet, we can start talking about 2011. Of course that is assuming there is a 2011, however everything you hear seems to sound positive that both sides will reach an agreement in time to prevent loss of anything this offseason. So where are the Bucs strongest? Where are they weak? Well its funny when you think about it, last year the needs were great all over, but in one single season the Bucs completely removed needs in some areas. Take Wide Receiver for one, last year the Bucs were looking at 2010 with ZERO

options. The Best receivers the Bucs could come up with were Mike Clayton and Maurice Stovall. Sammy Stroughter was coming off a pretty nice rookie season and his potential alone was the only thing Bucs fans could look forward to. Going into 2011, the Bucs WR corp looks like this: Mike Williams Arrelious Benn Dezmon Briscoe Sammy Stroughter Preston Parker Michael Spurlock So how do you justify keeping Maurice Stovall even though he is a special teams ace? How does anyone else even hope to make the roster?

The Bucs needs are pretty simple and obvious; they need more pressure on the QB. They already put time effort and money into two draft picks last season on the Defensive Tackle front, with Gerald McCoy and Brian Price. Both wound up on injured reserve in 2010. Expect the Bucs to take two Defensive Ends early in the draft. The other big need is at linebacker. The biggest reason Barrett Ruud makes tackles downfield is because he cannot shed blockers. Ruud is a very good linebacker, but he’s out of position. He should be playing more Weak Side linebacker due to his size, but that is occupied by Geno Hayes who himself is giving the Bucs fits with his inconsistencies. Expect the Bucs to beef up linebacker, the Bucs cannot afford to have their middle linebacker get run over my middle sized running backs like Chris Ivory did on Sunday. Other than those two positions, the Bucs are really well off at many of the other spots on the team. We talked about Wide Reciever, well next up, the secondary had question marks all

over it. Would Ronde Barber play his last season? Had father time passed him by? The hammer that dropped first was after week two when the NFL sent down the word that Tanard Jackson would be lost for the year due to failed drug test. The unit had not played bad, and common sense said Sabby Piscitelli would get his job back. Not so; the spat between Sabby and Coaches after his losing his job after the season obviously took its toll. Cody Grimm was given the nod, and other than a spin around getting lost in the end zone TD he gave up to the Steelers, he played a solid game and actually became the run stopper the Bucs needed. Suddenly runners could not get going like they were before, but then HE went out for the year. So Sabby for sure right? Nope, instead Sabby was cut, and Correy Lynch would take the job for the rest of the season. With Aqib Talib also going down, the young corners all got their share of playing time and they each made the most of it. So how do you find the guy to let go next year from this bunch? SAFETIES Sean Jones Tanard Jackson Cody Grimm Corey Lynch CORNERS Ronde Barber Aqib Talib E.J. Biggers Myron Lewis To be fair, if he comes back for his 15th season, Barber could be asked to play saftey next year. Going into 2011, Running Back was considered to be a one man band! Derrick Ward was supposed to share the load with Cadillac Williams, but instead Raheem let Ward go for being out of shape and lazy. Buc Cadillac was averaging 2.5 yards a carry, forcing the Bucs to look around for someone else. Kareem Huggins had so much potential for the year, but was lost for the season. Mark Dominik scoured the league and picked up Kregg Lumpkin and LeGarrett Blount, the later put up a 5.2 yards per carry average and 1,000 yards even though he didnt get more than a handful of carries until week 6. Thats ten games, 1,000 yards. Cadillac is a free agent, and may or may not come back next season. The Bucs are high on Lumpkin as a Cadillac style runner. FULLBACK Earnest Graham Erik Lorig TAILBACK LeGarrette Blount Kregg Lumpkin Cadillac Williams Kareem Huggins Don’t put tailback out of the Bucs planning, and FullBack is not even close to being settled. I cannot think of a player whose job is safer than Place Kicker Connor Barth. I can tell you right now Barth will be in my top ten video of ten best Bucs of 2010. Barth made 82% of his FGs(23 of 28), but the misses made sounds when they went by the posts they were so close, or blocked, which two of those were. Biggest difference is Barth did what Matt Bryant was let go for; kicking the long ones. He nailed one of his two attempts over 50 yards, and 6 of ten from 40-49 yards, but those where the blocked attempts, so he hit 80% there too! He was perfect 6-6 from 20-29 yards, and 10 of 10 from 30 to 39 yards.

Offensive Line underwent the Biggest lineup changes during the season, with only one position, left tackle, untouched during the year. Donald Penn who played every game at left tackle was the only solid spot on the line that protected Josh Freeman pretty well (28 sacks, 16th in NFL) and opened up holes for Blount to get 1000 yards in about 11 games. Center Jeff Faine and Right Guard Davin Joseph both finished the season on Injured reserve. Jeremy Zuttah was called on to play center, which opened up left guard for rookie Ted Larsen who excelled at the position. James Lee is another lineman who made the most of injuries, as he probably spelled the end of the line for right tackle Jeremy Trueblood who last year led the league in penalties like false starts. Jeff Faine also could be on the bubble as there seems to be more upside to Jeremy Zuttah at center, with Faine getting hurt often over the last season. With so many players getting hurt this year, that many players took advantage of their opportunities and got valuable playing time and experience. Wide Receiver, Secondary, Offensive Line are now positions of great depth, Quarterback and Running Back are now set for several years. While Defensive End and Linebacker are areas the Bucs need to address, that’s a lot less than where they were at the end of last year.