Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles would like to see his club add cornerback depth in the draft later this month.
"We don't have a lot of depth," Bowles said last week at the Annual League Meeting. "That's crystal clear -- we don't have a lot of depth. We hope to address that at some point in the draft, as well. We didn't sign many in free agency. We signed (Kindle) Vildor, we signed Bryce (Hall) -- he's coming off an injury and we've got to see what Vildor can do, obviously. We're going to address that in the draft."
The Hall and Vildor signings provide some depth, but the former is coming off just a single game played last year, and the latter was an in-a-pinch desperation player in Detroit.
The Bucs still have Jamel Dean. However, Bowles noted that injuries have made counting on the veteran difficult. The Bucs unearthed nickel CB Tykee Smith in the third round last year, and the coach praised 2022 fifth-rounder Zyon McCollum, adding he's become the most reliable of the bunch. The message to Dean, who played 12 games last season, is clear.
"Like I said, everybody's position is up for grabs," Bowles said. "I think Zyon is probably 1A, 1B because Zyon stayed healthier during the year. Dean has to get healthy. He comes in and he plays -- he can't play half a year, every couple of years. He understands he has to stay healthy and he's doing everything he can to be healthy, but we have to have some depth there just in case. If somebody comes in and competes with him, he's going to have to compete."
Bowles' comments don't require every mock drafter to change up whom they're projecting the Bucs to select in the first round of the draft on April 24.
"I can figure things out enough on defense to keep us competitive," Bowles said. "I would like to have some defensive players if that presented itself, but by no means will I bypass a very good offensive player just to satisfy my needs on defense. We can figure out a way to keep the score down, but you can't figure out a way to keep scoring points especially if you're horses go down, so you can never have enough horses on offense. Yes, I would like to add some pieces but whether they come first or whether they come in the middle remains to be seen."
Given that the Bucs drafted Dean in the third round, McCollum in the fifth, and Smith in the third, those middle rounds feel like the sweet spot for general manager Jason Licht to give Bowles more corner depth in 2025.
