Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Cutting J.R. Sweezy leaves little depth
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers cut offensive guard J.R. Sweezy on Friday, which leaves their offensive line a little bit thin heading into 2018.
No matter how you want to slice it, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive line wasn’t great last season. Just on the counting stats alone, the Bucs up front struggled to keep Jameis Winston clean, allowing 40 sacks on the season. Diving a little bit deeper, the unit was just average according to Pro Football Focus, who rated them as just the 17th “best” in the league a year ago. But now they’re shaking things up.
Earlier this offseason, the Bucs made a number of moves to address and hopefully improve their offensive line. In free agency, they signed center Ryan Jensen. Not only does Jensen give Tampa a quality guy in the middle, but it allows Ali Marpet — who played center last season — to shift back out to guard. Meanwhile, the Bucs also drafted high-upside prospect Alex Cappa in the third round out of Humboldt State.
Now the moves keep coming for the Buccaneers. On Friday, the team announced that they had cut guard J.R. Sweezy as he was set to enter his third year of a five-year contract. Sweezy missed all of 2016 due to injury after signing the deal, played poorly in 2017 when on the field, and was recovering from injury once again.
With Marpet moving back to guard, the Bucs clearly saw Sweezy as expendable and, after restructuring his contract last offseason, they could afford to cut him. And with the move, the starting offensive line in Tampa looks much better. However, losing Sweezy makes already questionable depth on the line even more troublesome.
From left to right along the line, the Bucs are likely to start Donovan Smith, Evan Smith, Jensen, Marpet and Demar Dotson. That’s not an offensive line that’s going to turn heads, but it’s better than it has been and good enough to be serviceable or better. However, behind those guys, there is little comfort found.
As promising as Cappa is as a prospect, he’s a small-school project that likely shouldn’t see the field this season if at all possible. Meanwhile, Caleb Benenoch is a guy who can play guard or tackle, but can’t particularly play either well. And the rest of the depth on the O-line consists of guys who we simply don’t know what they can offer.
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If the Buccaneers offensive line is healthy, then they should be able to take a step forward after the release of Sweezy. However, if there is any kind of injury, they could find themselves in a tricky situation now. Granted, they’re already in a tricky situation given the Jameis Winston suspension, but the release of Sweezy could potentially create another issue for this offense.