Each week during the regular season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ communications department publishes a “Game Release” to aid the media in coverage of their upcoming game. Within that release are a number of documents regarding the player roster, including a depth chart, which lists the pecking order at every position on offense, defense and special teams.<\/p>\n
Each game week, we will be taking a closer look at that depth chart, pointing out any changes or relevant notes from the previous game and which players saw notable action in that game. Let’s start on offense. Rookies are marked with an asterisk. Players we will be discussing in depth are highlighted in bold text.<\/p>\n
\n OFFENSE<\/p>\n
WR: Mike Evans, Ryan Miller<\/p>\n
WR: Chris Godwin, Sterling Shepard, Kameron Johnson<\/p>\n
LT: Tristan Wirfs, Benjamin Chukwuma*<\/p>\n
LG: Ben Bredeson, Elijah Klein<\/p>\n
RG: Luke Haggard, Dan Feeney<\/p>\n
WR: Emeka Egbuka, Tez Johnson<\/p>\n
TE: Cade Otton, Payne Durham, Devin Culp<\/p>\n
QB: Baker Mayfield, Teddy Bridgewater<\/p>\n
RB: Bucky Irving, Rachaad White, Sean Tucker, Josh Williams*<\/p>\n
Michael Jordan was elevated from the practice squad for Monday night’s game and took over at right guard with Luke Haggard sidelined by a shoulder injury. That was Jordan’s third and final elevation after he had come up to start at left guard in the first two games of the season.<\/p>\n
Tight end Cade Otton continued to be an iron man; one week after playing every offensive snap in the Bucs’ win over San Francisco he was on the field for all but two of the team’s 69 snaps against the Lions. Otton finished the game with a team-high seven catches for 65 yards. The Buccaneers used a heavy dose of two-TE sets, with Payne Durham also getting 24 snaps, though he was not targeted in the passing game.<\/p>\n
Even with the return of both Mike Evans and Emeka Egbuka, rookie wide receiver Tez Johnson continued to see a significant role in the Bucs’ offense, taking 47 snaps (68% of the total) and emerging with four catches for 58 yards and a touchdown. Only Egbuka, with 52 snaps, played more among the Bucs’ receivers, though that was obviously impacted by Mike Evans leaving the game with a broken clavicle after just 14 snaps.<\/p>\n
The Buccaneers didn’t bother with a backfield committee in Detroit, keeping Rachaad White on the field for 62 of the 69 offensive snaps. Sean Tucker saw just seven snaps. White finished with 38 yards on 10 carries and six yards on four catches.<\/p>\n
\n DEFENSE<\/p>\n
DL: Greg Gaines, Elijah Roberts*<\/p>\n
NT: Vita Vea, Elijah Simmons*<\/p>\n
DL: Logan Hall, C.J. Brewer<\/p>\n
OLB: Yaya Diaby, Chris Braswell, Markees Watts<\/p>\n
ILB: SirVocea Dennis, John Bullock*<\/p>\n
ILB: Lavonte David, Deion Jones<\/p>\n
OLB: Haason Reddick, Anthony Nelson<\/p>\n
CB: Jamel Dean, Benjamin Morris*, Kindle Vildor<\/p>\n
CB: Zyon McCollum, Jacob Parrish*, Josh Hayes<\/p>\n
S: Antoine Winfield Jr., Christian Izien, Sebastian Castro<\/p>\n
S: Tykee Smith, Kaevon Merriweather<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each week during the regular season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ communications department publishes a “Game Release” to aid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3314,589,135,137,136,12752],"class_list":["post-15104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-depth-chart-story","tag-featured","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-week-8-2025-saints"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}