The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will kick off mandatory minicamp on Tuesday at the AdventHealth Training Center. The three-day event will mark the first time the entire team will take the practice field together featuring veterans, draft picks and free agent acquisitions. Situational periods will be an emphasis under the direction of new Head Coach Todd Bowles. This is a pivotal time to complete and optimize defensive and offensive installs.
“As of right now, I expect everyone to be here,” Bowles stated in describing his expectations for minicamp. “Looking forward to all the guys just getting back together, really. The camaraderie – and just trying to pick up some of the things we learned in Phase II, and this OTA camp, and bring it home in minicamp.
“There will be more ‘good-on-good.’ But, not more in the physical sense – more of a competitive, situational stand-point sense – as far as executing the plays. Whether it’s fourth-and-goal on the five yard-line, whether it’s a two-minute drive, whether it’s third down, whether it’s backed-up – we’ll emphasize more situational things with ‘good-on-good’ with the defense understanding what the offense is trying to do and vice-versa. So, there will be a little bit more of that. But for the most part – schedule wise – we’ll have a lot of the same things. But there will be some tweaks in different periods.”
Here are five storylines to follow over the next few days as the Buccaneers build the foundation for the future prior to the start of Training Camp:
1) Defensive line progression
The Buccaneers defensive line will undergo a transition this season with new faces joining the lineup. The club did not re-sign Ndamukong Suh or backup Steve McLendon and added veteran Akiem Hicks to join the rotation with rookie Logan Hall alongside Vita Vea. It would have been a challenging task to have Hall replace Suh’s 700-plus snaps in his first year and Hicks will fortify the unit as an established veteran. Rakeem Nunez-Roches and Pat…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at News…