A Potential Buccaneers Defensive Weakness

Which lead me to send the stat to my friend and we both assumed the same thing: he is either a stud, or teams are targeting him a lot more than the next man up, either on the Buccaneers or the entire NFL. McCollum has been CB1 for the Buccaneers last season, so why not target some of those players brought in as cover for injury, or the much-maligned Jamel Dean, who the GM feels good about? Teams don’t actively target Jaire Alexander on the Packers every week, that’s just far too risky for any game plan. So why do it when you play Tampa?

Ready to go down the rabbit hole?

As far as Bucs go, McCollum is leaps and bounds ahead of other defensive backs Jamel Dean and Tykee Smith who both have 7 passes defended. I’ve not really been able to include Antoine Winfield in a lot of this due to injury. Which means that the Buccaneers’ secondary was made up of pick-ups and backups all season; which we have somehow picked up again in free agency.

Now, it would be remiss of me not to compare McCollum et all to others in the league. So, if McCollum was third, who were the top two: Denzel Ward of Cleveland with 19 and Mike Jackson of Carolina had 17 defended as well. We all know what type of season the Panthers and Browns had. Which should be an alarm bell in itself. The only potential saving grace here is that Denzel Ward is considered a top, top talent, something these snippets of numbers and data are claiming Zyon McCollum may be in a similar bracket.

However, when you look at the numbers in even more detail, that may not be the case.

McCollum was targeted the second most in the entire NFL a whopping 108 times, second to only Byron Murphy of the Vikings who was targeted 119 times. Of those 108, 62 were completed (57%) and ranked 54th in the league. Murphy, to continue the comparison, had 78 completed (65%), Ward was only targeted 77 times with 42 (54%) completed and Jackson was targeted 96 times with 64 completed (66%). So, when you look at those numbers, is it any surprise that McCollum is defending so many plays when he is targeted over a hundred times in a season? Again, on first reading of those numbers, it could be argued that because there are so many passes attempted, his numbers will be skewed somewhat.

Still with me, great.

Now does that sound so bad, I’m not convinced it’s great. In those 108 attempts, he defended those 17 plays. This begs the question: what happened the rest of the time? Well, of those, there were 54% of completed passes, and within that 54%, he has surrendered a significant number of yards: 839 in total, that’s the fifth highest in the league. But what about the other players I hear you ask, atop the rankings sits Brandon Stephens of the Ravens, with 906 yards (that surprised me); Byron Murphy comes in second with 852 (the same Byron Murphy who got a new $66m deal), who was tied with Alontae Taylor of the Saints; Mike Jackson is fourth with 845 and then McCollum.

So, what does this tell us?

Well, it tells us that the Vikings and Brian Flores may have flattered to deceive with Byron Murphy being exposed so much. But for the Buccaneers, we have a serious problem with how many yards we are letting teams gain on us.

To compound matters further, when you look at other Buccaneer players in the secondary, it’s not just McCollum, we’re bleeding yards all over the place. Even when Jamel Dean was injured for five games, he allowed 511 yards over 66 targets, with a 69% completion rate.

But even if you take those numbers with a pinch of salt, then let’s break it down even more. Of the 839 yards McCollum amassed, 502 of those yards were before he even got to the player to break up the play. Which means a massive 337 yards were yards after the catch (YAC). So even when he gets to the man, he can’t stop a man. Those 502 yards have him as 10th highest in the league. I’m not surprised teams are targeting McCollum because when all is said and done, he’s not doing nearly enough to stop the ball moving. Dean is just as bad: of those 511 yards, 371 are in the air and 140 are YAC.

Are you all still with me? Because it somehow gets worse.

Zyon McCollum has a Pass Rating (which in this case means pass rating when targeted) of 86.9, which ranks him as 213th in the league. To put that into perspective, Antoine Winfield has a rating of 136.5 from his 9 games this season, but Jamel Dean has a rating of 91.2. To compound this some more, Mike Jackson of the Panthers has a rating of 106.5, and Byron Murphy, rather like McCollum, has a low rating of 76.7. That $66m deal they threw his way may come back to bite them.

All of this tells me that the Buccaneers have a real problem on defense. Even with the stats that make McCollum look like he’s a great corner, he just isn’t in this system at all. But if I am honest, none of the cornerbacks or secondary, other than Winfield, appear to be pulling their weight. With only 18 takeaways and 7 interceptions in 2024, the Buccaneers defense needs to step up and step up in a big way in 2025.

With that being my stance on the defensive side of the ball, what has caused this?

If we look at the draft, as far back as 2018, they drafted Carlton Davis III and MJ Stewart, as well as Jordan Whitehead at safety. Sean Murphy Bunting and Jamel Dean followed in 2019, with Mike Edwards being drafted too at safety. 2020 saw Antoine Winfield Jr arrive and in 2022 McCollum was drafted.

The Bucs picked up a host of players throughout the season to combat injury, as well as the returning Bryce Hall in free agency last season; but what stands out for me is that when you look at those names, none bar Winfield stand out as elite or top level players. And even when some of those players have left, they’ve not been replaced by better players. With hindsight being a wonderful thing, probably means that the new deal for Dean was misplaced and hamstrung the Buccaneers by almost forcing Dean to play with Davis, before he was traded, or then with a raw McCollum. And don’t get me wrong, I get the whole ‘run it back’ thing that teams do, but you have sometimes not be afraid to make those tough calls and move on when needed and this has cost the Buccaneers when it has mattered most.

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To circle back to where I started the article, the potential disconnect between Bowles and Licht, one addressing the issue and the other praising a declining player, could end up with a potential missed opportunity in the draft and end up the same issue again. We need help, but we don’t need bodies in the building help, that crushed us down the stretch. What we need is solid, difference maker at the position, who can do all the things we need to ensure that those numbers don’t pile up on McCollum and Dean again. But are we in a position to get that at 19. I’m not convinced we are. One thing is for sure: the Buccaneers need to sort out their plans in the secondary or they are in real trouble.

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