Taking those in order, the most obvious remaining battle is at left guard, where the Buccaneers will be moving on from retired Pro Bowler Ali Marpet. The knee injury suffered by Aaron Stinnie has taken him out of that competition and left it up to mostly unproven, if promising, candidates. Rookie Luke Goedeke, the 57th-overall pick in this year’s draft, could be considered the frontrunner based on the fact that he started the second preseason game there and, as revealed by Bowles on Thursday, will do so again in Indianapolis.
Still, Bowles is clearly indicating that the job is not fully won yet, which means second-year player Nick Leverett and perhaps first-year blocker Brandon Walton can still make their case for the job on Saturday. A former undrafted free agent, Walton has yet to take a regular-season snap in the NFL but he’s gotten some time with the first-team line in camp and has impressed with his versatility.
“Brandon’s been steady all camp,” said Bowles. “He’s a ‘Steady Eddie’ guy, he understands what he’s doing, he has proper technique, he’s tough and he fits the need. He can play left guard or right guard, so he’s been doing well.”
Walton’s versatility – he can also play tackle, his college position – could help him quite a bit if he fails to win the left guard job but is still trying to stick as a reserve. The Buccaneers are likely to keep nine or 10 offensive linemen (including an injured Ryan Jensen) on the first iteration of the 53-man roster, which means there are still some cuts to make in that group.
The competition at wide receiver is less about who will start and have the most prominent roles, given a pretty obvious top four of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Russell Gage and Julio Jones, and more about how many of the other talented wideouts make it through and who that will be. Cyril Grayson is out of the running after being waived/injured on Thursday but the coaches and personnel pros must still sort through the likes of Scotty Miller, Jaelon Darden, Tyler Johnson, Breshad Perriman and even some impressive undrafted rookies.
One of those young newcomers is Utah State’s Deven Thompkins, who has been impressing the coaching staff since OTAs and continues to shine on the practice field, as do Jerreth Sterns of Western Kentucky and Kaylon Geiger of Texas Tech.
“He’s been very good,” said Bowles of Thompkins. “We’ve got a lot of talented guys over there. I’m not taking anything away from any of them. Deven has shown us toughness, he can catch…
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