TAMPA — Excuse the mess. These locker rooms can get a little cluttered after a game.
TAMPA — Excuse the mess. These locker rooms can get a little cluttered after a game.
So step past the discarded gloves, balls of tape and sweaty socks. And, please, make sure you don’t trip on the fallen left tackle, the battered right guard and the expensive right tackle rolling past on his medical mobility scooter.
Yes, these are some chaotic moments for the Tampa Bay offensive line.
On the one hand, the Bucs are 3-0 after coming from behind — as well as ahead — to beat the Jets 29-27 as time expired on Sunday. On the other hand, none of their five offensive linemen were No. 1 on the depth chart at the positions they were playing.
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The guy at left tackle is normally a center. The guy at center is normally a left guard. The guy playing right tackle has been with four teams in the past 13 months, and the guy playing left guard came in with a total of nine offensive snaps on his NFL resume. The guy playing right guard was making his NFL debut. Other than that, it was exactly how Bucs run game coordinator/offensive line coach Kevin Carberry envisioned things.
Given the musical chairs quality of the line, I asked tackle/center Graham Barton about Carberry’s mood this week.
“Hey Ben, he wants to know what Carbs was like this week,” Barton asked center/guard Ben Bredeson.
“Cool as a cucumber,” Bredeson replied.
“He might have been a little on edge,” Barton decided.
If so, it didn’t show on Sunday.
Oh, there were some hiccups. The Bucs had 124 yards in penalties, which is the most they’d ever had in a victory. The offensive line was responsible for five holding penalties and two false starts. (The receivers added two more holding penalties.)
But, considering the circumstances, it was a fairly impressive performance for five guys who had likely never lined up in this configuration before this week.
“It wasn’t always pretty, clearly we had penalties and some other stuff,” Carberry said. “But they all kept their composure throughout the course of the game, and that’s what I was most proud of. They went out competed against a good front.”
Perhaps more than any other position group, you hear about the offensive line as a single unit. Five guys playing like a movable wall. Accounting for any one of the 11 defensive players who might be inclined to come flying across the line of scrimmage in the direction of quarterback Baker Mayfield.
Take one guy out of that group, and you create a potential weak spot no matter how good his backup might be. The Bucs have not only dealt with injuries to starters Tristan Wirfs, Luke Goedeke and Cody Mauch as well as backup guard Mike Jordan, they also moved Barton and Bredeson around to get replacements in positions where they might be the most successful.
“All the credit goes to Coach Carberry and (offensive line coach) Brian Picucci getting the best five out there and figuring out the best place for those guys to fit,” Barton said. “That’s not an easy task. It took a lot of late nights for them getting everybody prepared, but we’ve got guys who don’t miss a beat.”
For the record, Barton was referring to right tackle Charlie Heck, right guard Luke Haggard and left guard Elijah Klein. I’m not sure you could go online and find a football card between them.
“Next-man-up mentality,” Mayfield said. “Except you are meeting some guys during the week. Welcome to the team — this is what we are about, and this is how we do it.”
Mayfield was semijoking. While Klein and Haggard were making their first NFL starts on Sunday, both were with the Bucs last season, either in reserve roles or on the practice squad. And that familiarity made a difference.
“I think there was a lot of trust given to us, even before it was really earned,” Klein said. “Haggard and I were making our first starts, obviously, but the guys that had played many reps before us treated us with respect and faith, and we were super thankful for that.”
Of course, it’s important not to go overboard with this. While the Bucs are undefeated, they are averaging about 322 yards of offense per game. A year ago, they were rolling along at 400 yards per game. Bucky Irving was one of the most explosive backs in the NFL as a rookie with 5.4 yards per carry in 2024 but is averaging an anemic 3.1 yards through the first three games.
Some of that, obviously, is a result of the offensive line shuffling.
So it’s good that the Bucs might get some relief next week. If Wirfs comes back, Barton likely returns to center and Bredeson moves back to guard. If Jordan is available, that means a second-string right guard instead of a third-string one.
The optimistic view is the Bucs are prepared if the worst happens.
But it would be nice if they didn’t keep testing that thesis.
John Romano can be reached at [email protected]. Follow @romano_tbtimes.
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Category: General Sports
