Speaker 1: Greeting's Buccaneer fans. I'm Scott Smith, and I'm joined today
Speaker 1: by a guest that many of you are surely very
Speaker 1: familiar with. He came up through the Bucks speed. I mean,
Speaker 1: his Twitter handle is still Tampa Bay Tray. I think
Speaker 1: I think you still support the Bay Area teams. Of course.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Trevor Sikima, who is now the lead
Speaker 1: draft analyst for Pro Football Focus, which is quite a gig.
Speaker 1: Also a co host with Connor Rodgers of NBC Sports
Speaker 1: of a very good and very popular draft related podcast
Speaker 1: called The NFL Stock Exchange. Personally, it's a muscle listen
Speaker 1: for me. Check it out, Trevor, Thanks for your time.
Speaker 2: Man, Scott is so good to be with you. Man.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to dig into the Bucks class a little
Speaker 2: bit here with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, welcome back to your roots. Tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit before we get into the Bucks. What's next
Speaker 1: for the Stock Exchange and the stuff you're putting up
Speaker 1: on Pro Football Focus.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, it's been a really exciting draft season and you know,
Speaker 3: to kind of your your your first point there.
Speaker 2: It's always great. I always love.
Speaker 3: Getting to come back and talk about Bucks football because
Speaker 3: you know, ever since the Pewter Report days and I
Speaker 3: was covering this team with Scott Reynolds and Mark Cook
Speaker 3: and everybody there.
Speaker 2: You know, you cover the league.
Speaker 3: Nationally, you go from that to kind of covering from
Speaker 3: a national perspective, and I just don't get to talk
Speaker 3: about the Bucks nearly as much. And I definitely but
Speaker 3: I get to go on shows like this. It's sort
Speaker 3: of therapeutic for me. I get to actually talk about
Speaker 3: the Bucks more. But no, this dock has change.
Speaker 2: Has been great.
Speaker 3: It has been an awesome year covering the NFL draft
Speaker 3: of Connor, who is one of my favorite just people
Speaker 3: in the industry and people in the world. So it's
Speaker 3: a lot of fun for me to be able to
Speaker 3: do that. You're a couple of weeks off after the draft.
Speaker 3: Grades episode kind of came out last week, and we're
Speaker 3: going to dig into twenty twenty five prospects when we
Speaker 3: get into summer scouting in June and July, and then
Speaker 3: once training camp kind of gets closer, we'll kind of
Speaker 3: talk about some of the guys in twenty twenty for
Speaker 3: how they're doing in training camp, what we could see
Speaker 3: from this upcoming year.
Speaker 2: So a lot of pack stuff this summer for sure.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll just dive into the Bucks draft. First
Speaker 1: of all, can you believe Jason lt didn't make any
Speaker 1: trades the whole weekend? I mean, this first time he's
Speaker 1: ever done that.
Speaker 3: It's the first time he's never made a trade, is
Speaker 3: that really?
Speaker 1: The first time? In eleven dress all he had to
Speaker 1: do was call it the Eagles. They surely would have
Speaker 1: done something, but yeah, not one trade, just sat there
Speaker 1: at each pick.
Speaker 3: It is funny because when I think about Jason, I
Speaker 3: know how much he loves the draft. So you know,
Speaker 3: some people will, you know, like the national people that
Speaker 3: I talked to, they'll be like, oh, maybe Tampa is
Speaker 3: going to be this team to get really aggressive and
Speaker 3: like jump all the way up from twenty six to
Speaker 3: I don't know, like seven or eight or something like that.
Speaker 2: And I was like, probably not, because.
Speaker 3: Jason loves the draft too much and I don't want
Speaker 3: to give up.
Speaker 2: All those draft picks.
Speaker 3: He's just his team building philosophy has always been through
Speaker 3: the draft. So I never really associate trades with what
Speaker 3: the Bucks do, But now that you say it, they
Speaker 3: do a lot of those little trades two day three,
Speaker 3: something like that, so that's funny that they didn't make
Speaker 3: a single trade this year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So well, Graham Barton the first round pick for the
Speaker 1: Buccaneers Duke center. Two questions there. Did you see that coming?
Speaker 1: And did you think it was the right pick?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to kind of like too my own
Speaker 3: horn here and say that I called this year out,
Speaker 3: because I'm definitely not saying that that was the case.
Speaker 3: But when I watched Graham Barton during summer scouting a
Speaker 3: year ago, I just looked at the type of player
Speaker 3: that he was, the positional flexibility that he had, that
Speaker 3: mentality had both for pass blocking and run blocking, just
Speaker 3: how he wanted to be a finisher, he played through
Speaker 3: the whistle, just his play style, his balance, all of
Speaker 3: that stuff, and I went, man, you know, people talk
Speaker 3: about him as the left tackle the Duke Blue Devils,
Speaker 3: but he'll probably be an interior offensive lineman at the
Speaker 3: NFL level. That in and of itself is very much
Speaker 3: what Jason Light has gravitated towards you, Ali, Marpett, Cody
Speaker 3: mak Alex Kappa. Right, so many of these guys who
Speaker 3: played tackle in college, who kicked inside and had a
Speaker 3: lot of success at that level, and I looked at
Speaker 3: him last summer I was like, I have no idea
Speaker 3: if this is possible. I have no idea if the
Speaker 3: Bucks are even going to want an interior offensive lineman.
Speaker 3: But I bet he'd be a player that Jason light
Speaker 3: would gravitate towards. So, you know, a week ago, or
Speaker 3: I should say a week prior to the draft, when
Speaker 3: Jason did his pre draft press conference and he said, hey,
Speaker 3: we got about five to seven players that we would
Speaker 3: be comfortable with at twenty six, I'd bet my bottom
Speaker 3: dollar that Graham Barton was going to be one of
Speaker 3: those players.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Didn't know if he was going to make it to
Speaker 3: twenty six. Obviously, they talked about them being shock that
Speaker 3: he did. But I think he's a perfect fit for
Speaker 3: what they want, right, I mean, like I think that
Speaker 3: they've obviously Tristan Wurf's is an All Pro offensive tackle
Speaker 3: and he's a mainstay there. It was great to see
Speaker 3: deck You get better last year. Cody Mack is obviously
Speaker 3: coming along as well. But there are a couple of
Speaker 3: upgrades that they could have made it along the interior
Speaker 3: offensive line, maybe at Guarden, maybe at center, and Barton
Speaker 3: has the ability to play both. I know people kind
Speaker 3: of talked about, okay, his announce as a center, they'll
Speaker 3: probably start him at that center spot, But in reality,
Speaker 3: he's one of thost flexible interior offensive linemen who sure,
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four he might be playing one spot
Speaker 3: for you, but in twenty twenty five it might be
Speaker 3: a different one. And I still think that he's going
Speaker 3: to be able to maintain that high level of play.
Speaker 2: So I did like Barton a good amount.
Speaker 3: He's been a pretty much a top forty player for
Speaker 3: me since the moment that I watched him. He was
Speaker 3: somebody that I felt could be a late first early
Speaker 3: second round pick depending on where the overall hype from
Speaker 3: the league was going to place him. And so for
Speaker 3: him going to Tampa, I think it's a really great
Speaker 3: spot and he feels like a Buccaneers fit.
Speaker 2: He really does.
Speaker 1: I would imagine you could probably recite the Bucks entire
Speaker 1: draft for all the attention you paid too and for
Speaker 1: every team probably. So when you look at the draft
Speaker 1: as a whole, all seven players, is there one that
Speaker 1: sticks out as a particularly good value or a steal?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's there's a couple that I like
Speaker 3: you know, and it's and it's more of you know,
Speaker 3: when I do this, I'll do a big board, and
Speaker 3: I'll have these players ranked in certain spots. But it's
Speaker 3: always kind of tricky, you know, when I do these
Speaker 3: draft grades. You know, sometimes, for example, like a player
Speaker 3: might get drafted in the sixties and I might have
Speaker 3: him ranked in like eighties nineties on my board, but
Speaker 3: the fit might be fantastic, and so I'm not necessarily
Speaker 3: going to say, Okay, well I had him ranked twenty
Speaker 3: spots lower, and I'm going to like ding this team
Speaker 3: this team for it on their draft grade. If I
Speaker 3: like the fit, then I like the fit. Like I
Speaker 3: like that player going to that spot. I could actually
Speaker 3: see them working out really well. When I look at
Speaker 3: a player like Jaylen McMillan, the wide receiver from Washington
Speaker 3: wide receiver was kind of a sneaky need for the
Speaker 3: Buccaneers's just long term, you know, I don't think it's
Speaker 3: you know, obviously with with Mike and Chris there, they're
Speaker 3: going to get the lion's share of the targets in
Speaker 3: the passing game, but long term, two three years down
Speaker 3: the road, you don't know where this team's exactly going
Speaker 3: to be So it's why you got guys like Trey
Speaker 3: Palmer's why you draft the guy like Jalen McMillan to say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, if we happen to move on from one
Speaker 3: of these guys sooner than maybe we thought we were
Speaker 3: going to, we're gonna be all right because we already
Speaker 3: got these guys in the farm system, if you will.
Speaker 3: McMillan to me is somebody who was really impressed with
Speaker 3: at the college level because Washington continued to emphasize him
Speaker 3: in the passing game. And we have a metric at
Speaker 3: PFF that we call threat and it's basically wide receiver usage.
Speaker 3: How often are you getting targeted when you are running
Speaker 3: a route on the field in a passing concept That
Speaker 3: shows how much the offense emphasizes you when they are
Speaker 3: passing the football. Despite Washington having Romo Doonsay and Jalen Polk,
Speaker 3: Jalen McMillan still got a decent amount of the touches.
Speaker 3: They still wanted to get this guy the ball in
Speaker 3: his hands. And I felt like, just because he was
Speaker 3: in a same class with those two other receivers, it
Speaker 3: was probably gonna push McMillan down just because he wasn't
Speaker 3: going to get that hype, but I really felt like
Speaker 3: where the Bucks drafted him, I thought that was a
Speaker 3: steal kind of at that back into the third round,
Speaker 3: I think that he could be really valuable for him
Speaker 3: And when I look at this class overall, that's the
Speaker 3: one that I think, Man, there is a path where
Speaker 3: he could really come in handy if the team's in
Speaker 3: a financial pinch, or if one of those top two
Speaker 3: guys ends up going down or leaving a team in
Speaker 3: a couple of years, whatever it is, I think McMillan
Speaker 3: could fill in pretty nicely.
Speaker 1: You know, our new wide receivers coach set on Monday
Speaker 1: that Chris Godwin is going to go back to playing
Speaker 1: primarily in the slot after his role kind of changed
Speaker 1: last year, and that he felt Jalen McMillan could play
Speaker 1: the ZX or the F And I know you certainly
Speaker 1: watched his tape and saw that they he almost played
Speaker 1: exclusively out of the slot at Washington. But given his
Speaker 1: skill set, you see him being able to thrive on
Speaker 1: the outside. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think so too, just because he's such a smart
Speaker 2: wide receiver.
Speaker 3: Right. The thing that I like the most about McMillan
Speaker 3: and The reason why he had so much success from
Speaker 3: the slot is you give him that flexibility in that
Speaker 3: space and he knows what to do with it. Right.
Speaker 2: It's not just the slot.
Speaker 3: Isn't this thing where it's like a cure for all
Speaker 3: wide receivers where you just go, oh, okay, they're not
Speaker 3: great at the boundary, let's put him in the slot.
Speaker 3: They'll be great when you're in the slot. You have to,
Speaker 3: in fact, be able to manage space even better. You
Speaker 3: have to anticipate when space is going to open up.
Speaker 3: Those soft spots in the zone. They don't just exist
Speaker 3: for everybody, you know, unless you really do what you
Speaker 3: need to do to kind of manipulate the leverage of
Speaker 3: where linebackers or corners or safeties are lined up. They're
Speaker 3: not just gonna give you the space just because you've
Speaker 3: still got to You gotta be a little savvy. You
Speaker 3: got to have a little nuanced to what you do.
Speaker 3: So McMillan, to me is a really smart football player
Speaker 3: in regards to how he finds that open space. I
Speaker 3: think that can exist as a spot and as a flanker,
Speaker 3: as that Z player. You're not gonna want him on
Speaker 3: as an X because he's just not really that big, strong,
Speaker 3: on the line of scrimmage type of a wide receiver.
Speaker 3: But I like him anytime he gets to be off
Speaker 3: the line of scrimmage if you want him on the outside,
Speaker 3: because that also becomes a player that you can move
Speaker 3: around in pre snap motion sets, and I think he's
Speaker 3: got a lot of versatility and high football IQ to
Speaker 3: be able to utilize that too.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the slot I've been stumping for, I believe
Speaker 1: the NFL needs changing the name of the position on
Speaker 1: defense from slot corner to something that doesn't have the
Speaker 1: word corner in it, because more and more you're seeing
Speaker 1: players that are nominally called safeties but did a lot
Speaker 1: of that slot work in college, and they they're brought
Speaker 1: in specifically to do that, even if they're called safety. Now.
Speaker 1: I know the Bucks really really liked that Michigan corner
Speaker 1: Mikey Saint Bristol, and he went off the board before
Speaker 1: the Bucks in the second round. But I've heard Tykee
Speaker 1: Smith of Georgia described as a similar type of player,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure he's going to get a slot
Speaker 1: in the a shot in the slot right away, and
Speaker 1: that is that? Was that a pick you liked and
Speaker 1: will he be able to handle that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is definitely a pick that I liked. And
Speaker 3: when I watched Tyke Smith, wait, sorry, as my dog barking,
Speaker 3: can you hear that? Well? That's okay, okay, all right,
Speaker 3: all right, I'm I'm just making sure. So I really
Speaker 3: like Tyke Smith. And when you look at his background,
Speaker 3: he played more primarily safety when he was at West
Speaker 3: Virginia and then when he came over to Georgia, he
Speaker 3: was that slot defender. And there's a couple of different
Speaker 3: names that you have for like in college football they
Speaker 3: call it a little bit of different things, Like sometimes
Speaker 3: see defenses call it a star position, which I think
Speaker 3: is aptly named because that player is sometimes integral to
Speaker 3: exactly everything else that you do in coverage. So you know,
Speaker 3: for this player that Tyke Smith was for Georgia, he
Speaker 3: was a more powerful, like bigger, stronger nickel defender where
Speaker 3: sometimes it feels as though teams have to pick and choose. Right, Okay,
Speaker 3: do we want a true safety to try to play
Speaker 3: as our over hang in our nickel defender, because if so,
Speaker 3: then the quicker wide receivers might give him fits? All right,
Speaker 3: do we want a smaller corner to play that nickel
Speaker 3: defender role because if so, then if a team puts
Speaker 3: a tight end at that spot, man, then we're really
Speaker 3: getting a mismatch when it comes to size. Tyke Smith,
Speaker 3: to me, gives you a little bit.
Speaker 2: Of that best of both worlds.
Speaker 3: Now, I didn't have him ranked as high as I
Speaker 3: did Mike Sandristoll, but Smith really does kind of bring
Speaker 3: that to the table where he has the strength to
Speaker 3: match up against tight ends, and I think he's got
Speaker 3: the foot quickness against all different types of receivers as well.
Speaker 3: So that's why you gravitate towards a player like this
Speaker 3: because he can be, in theory, a one size fits
Speaker 3: all nickel defender. And as they say at this point
Speaker 3: in the NFL, nickel is the new bass. You're playing
Speaker 3: nickel more than sixty percent of the time, So you've
Speaker 3: got to have a good player that you can rely
Speaker 3: on in that spot, and I think Tykee Smith can
Speaker 3: be that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not going to make it go down each
Speaker 1: pick one by one, but I do want to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts on Bucky Irving, the fourth round running back
Speaker 1: out of Oregon, a guy that I think the butser
Speaker 1: hoping can really take a good chunk of the role
Speaker 1: right away, because they don't really necessarily want Rashaan White
Speaker 1: to lead all NFL running backs and snaps again this year.
Speaker 1: So what do you think of his fit in what
Speaker 1: the Buccaneers are trying to do and can he be
Speaker 1: a three down back?
Speaker 2: I love Bucky Irving, I really do.
Speaker 3: He was my RB five going into the draft, and
Speaker 3: I understand, Look, he's smaller.
Speaker 2: He didn't really test very well.
Speaker 3: Those are two things that normally go against you at
Speaker 3: a position that demands athleticism, like running back does. But
Speaker 3: there are two metrics that we we love to use
Speaker 3: when we are judging running backs going from college to
Speaker 3: the pros that sort of take away them from their
Speaker 3: offensive line, right because that's the ultimate question. When a
Speaker 3: running back is super productive, we go, yeah, it's just
Speaker 3: because he's.
Speaker 2: Behind one of the best offensive lines. You know, like
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 3: These two metrics that we have can really take the
Speaker 3: running back away from that and we can see some
Speaker 3: more individual statistics from them. That is, misstackles, force per attempt.
Speaker 3: So how often you are making guys miss, whether that's
Speaker 3: in the backfield, whether it's at the line of scrimmage,
Speaker 3: whether it's when you get to the second level, how
Speaker 3: often are you making players miss? And then yards after contact,
Speaker 3: because no matter how your offensive line plays, you're probably
Speaker 3: gonna get contact somewhere. Is it in the backfield, is
Speaker 3: it the line of scrimmage, is it at the second level,
Speaker 3: is it to the sideline?
Speaker 2: Where is it? And how many yards do you get
Speaker 2: after that contact?
Speaker 3: Bucky Irving was above the ninetieth percentile in both of
Speaker 3: those metrics, and when it came to force miss tackles
Speaker 3: per attempt, he was in the one hundredth percentile. There
Speaker 3: are I don't know if many running backs at all
Speaker 3: that we have seen over the last five, six, seven
Speaker 3: years that have had the average that he has had.
Speaker 3: And so what we do when we get those percentiles
Speaker 3: is we kind of divide that up into the last
Speaker 3: couple of years of guys who went into the NFL
Speaker 3: draft and had successful seasons there. So when you look
Speaker 3: at Bucky Irving's numbers, he's fantastic outside of his offensive line.
Speaker 3: So that, to me is what the Bucks are probably
Speaker 3: looking for from him, is that one cut ability, the ability.
Speaker 2: To bounce off tackles.
Speaker 3: He has got a determined running style despite being a
Speaker 3: smaller player. Sure he's not going to hit the forty
Speaker 3: fifty sixty yard home run rushes for you, but you
Speaker 3: don't need that, and how often you really give the
Speaker 3: chance to.
Speaker 2: Be able to do that.
Speaker 3: You rather have a back that gets you a healthy
Speaker 3: four to five yards per carry every single time he
Speaker 3: touches the football, and that is the efficiency of the
Speaker 3: run game that I'm sure the Buccaneers were looking forward
Speaker 3: to increase, to always have out there where they believe
Speaker 3: or Shot White could be that guy. But again, like
Speaker 3: you said, you don't want to give this guy a
Speaker 3: million carries every single year. You want it to be
Speaker 3: a steady committee. You want to have somebody that you
Speaker 3: can lean on. And Rashad White and Bucky Irving, I
Speaker 3: think are two really nice backs to pair here in
Speaker 3: this backfield to expect some good efficiency and some good production.
Speaker 1: All right, Trevor, last question, I'm not coming into this
Speaker 1: one blind. I did listen to your podcast with the
Speaker 1: draft grades. I wasn't gonna risk having you on here
Speaker 1: and get slapping us with a D plus or something
Speaker 1: like that. So share with the Buccaneer fans the grade
Speaker 1: that you encounter gave the Buccaneers and why.
Speaker 3: I gave this an A and I gave the Buccaneers
Speaker 3: draft class an A because there's not much else that
Speaker 3: you really could have wanted from this draft pass. Like, sure,
Speaker 3: you could say I would have rather had this player
Speaker 3: than this player, but often the situations aren't really plausible
Speaker 3: for that to be the case. You know, when you
Speaker 3: look at draft classes overall, I think of the context
Speaker 3: of where they were drafted and how they formulated this
Speaker 3: draft strategy specifically, and I thought the Buccaneers did a
Speaker 3: really great job. Chris Braswell, to me, is kind of
Speaker 3: the ultimate wild card. If Braswell really breaks out and
Speaker 3: he really plays well, then this is just an absolute home.
Speaker 2: Run of a draft.
Speaker 3: If Braswell is more of just you know, kind of
Speaker 3: just a rotational edge rusher, that speed, explosive player who
Speaker 3: gives you a lot of power as a two point
Speaker 3: outside linebacker, even if that's just what he is as
Speaker 3: a rotational player, this class can still be very impactful because,
Speaker 3: like the players that we went over already, Barton I
Speaker 3: think can be a starter, Tyke Smith can be a starter,
Speaker 3: Jayalen McMillan could be a starter. And if Braswell is
Speaker 3: another starter. I mean, for you to get four starters
Speaker 3: out of this class.
Speaker 2: To me, that's just an absolute home run.
Speaker 3: So I thought it was the exact type of draft
Speaker 3: that Tampa needed you could have. I mean I saw
Speaker 3: a lot of Bucks fans over the last month or
Speaker 3: so through out a lot of different mock drafts of
Speaker 3: you know, like, oh, what if they went edge rusher
Speaker 3: in the first round, or what if they went a
Speaker 3: different position in the first round, wide receiver, whatever it was.
Speaker 3: But for how the draft fell well to them, I
Speaker 3: think they did a great job, as Jason light has
Speaker 3: done for a while now, of identifying the guys that
Speaker 3: they can get at every spot with a look ahead
Speaker 3: at like, Okay, if we take this guy here, these
Speaker 3: are the positions that we can get maybe around from now,
Speaker 3: and you have a really good draft strategy to it.
Speaker 3: I think that this draft was a representation of a
Speaker 3: really good draft strategy relative to the players and the
Speaker 3: positions that they needed. And for that you got to
Speaker 3: give it an a.
Speaker 1: Well thanks Trevor, and thanks for all your insight. Great
Speaker 1: stuff as I knew it would be. And hey, anytime
Speaker 1: you want to talk to the people that bought the Buccaneers.
Speaker 1: Just give me a call, man, I'll be your conduit.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it, Scott.
Speaker 3: You might regret that because I might request to get
Speaker 3: on a bunch of times during the season, but I
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Man, anytime, all right,