The Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years dawns a new era… known as Mock Draft Season. As does the conclusion of every Super Bowl as we look to the next season. Now that all eyes are on 2020, most of the major pundits have started on their projections for how the NFL Draft will go.
Some of those national pundits released their own mock drafts this week but a consensus on who Tampa Bay takes at No. 14 in the 2020 NFL Draft is far from being reached. Most can't even agree on a position, let alone a prospect. The Bucs have some solidified needs heading into their second season under Head Coach Bruce Arians, but the priority of those needs, coupled with what players will be available, have draftniks perplexed.
There's Todd McShay, ESPN's draft guru, who sees the Bucs with a defensive end in LSU's K'Lavon Chaisson in his Mock Draft 2.0 released on Monday. There's Chad Reuter, from NFL.com, who released a three-round mock this week, predicting the Bucs to prioritize the offensive line with Louisville's Mekhi Becton first, followed by a running back in Wisconsin's Jonathan Taylor and finally shift to defense with pass rusher Josh Uche from Michigan in the third.
Then of course, you have yours truly and Bucs senior writer Scott Smith, who released our first mock draft of 2020. I had the pick and took Iowa's Tristan Wirfs, an offensive tackle with experience all along the line, focusing on right tackle for one of the best offensive lines in college football. Something about those Big Ten big boys. In two weeks, we'll see if Scott feels the same as far as needs and priorities go.
We'll continue to keep track of the latest predictions from outlets around the country in our Mock Draft Roundups, the latest of which can be found here. It makes it easy to see how things evolve week by week.
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February 5 was also National Girls and Women in Sports Day, not that the Bucs need a day to highlight all the contributions women make in this organization specifically. The below video is only a fraction of the women who work for the Bucs and it was incredible to see all the love going around the Twittersphere among men and women for the impact women have had in football and beyond.
The Bucs also announced that their flag football scholarship program has begun taking applicants. The academic scholarship awards college tuition assistance for girls who participate in flag football at the high school level. You can read more about it here, after our friends at the Tampa Bay Times profiled a feature on the initiative.
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Also, if you're still in review mode, I reviewed some of Lavonte David's 2019 film and he's still - checks notes - the best all-around off-ball linebacker in the league.
