The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won't come back from their week in Nashville with exactly the same the roster they arrived with. On Thursday, the team announced that it has signed defensive tackle Drew Iddings, most recently of the Carolina Panthers. Iddings take the roster spot previously occupied by second-year defensive tackle Stevie Tu'ikolovatu, who was waived with an injury designation.
The Buccaneers are in Tennessee for a series of joint practices with the Titans before the two teams meet for a preseason game at Nissan Stadium on Saturday night.
Iddings spent the 2017 season on Carolina's injured reserve list after sustaining a shoulder injury in August. He returned to the Panthers this year but was waived just before the start of training camp.
Iddings (6-5, 290) first entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent out of South Dakota, signing with the Oakland Raiders in 2016. He attended a rookie mini-camp in New Orleans in the spring of 2017 and the Saints signed him with the idea of converting him to offensive guard. After the Saints waived him in June, the Panthers picked him up and moved him back to his original side of the line.
At South Dakota, Iddings played in 46 games over four seasons, starting for several seasons at defensive end. He finished with 149 career tackles, plus 7.5 sacks and 32 passes defensed. Iddings also forced two fumbles as a senior and blocked two kicks as a junior.
Tu'ikolovatu was a seventh-round draft pick by the Buccaneers out of USC but he never appeared in a regular-season game. He played in three preseason contests last summer but landed on injured reserve for the balance of his rookie season. Tu'ikolovatu also saw action in this year's preseason opener in Miami before his waiver on Thursday.
