Buccaneers NFL Draft Target: WR Tai Felton, Maryland

Will the Buccaneers target more receiver depth in this year’s draft?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have gone out of their way this offseason to ensure their offensive success, from a season ago, continues into Baker Mayfield’s third year in Tampa. Returning all 11 starters from 2024 shows continuity was clearly a point of emphasis and one the Bucs have succeed in. The return of those key contributors has led most to forecast a defensive draft class for the Buccaneers this go around. Tampa Bay’s defense has struggled mightly, at times, over the last few seasons— pass-rush, coverage, as well as tackling have all been highly critiquable. Conventional wisdom definitely says the Bucs will go defense early and often, however, a particular quote from Todd Bowles (that flew under most radars) may highlight a different thought process—

“I can figure things out enough on defense to keep us competitive… I would like to have some defensive players… 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.”

If the Buccaneers do opt for offensive talent, its believable that wide reciever depth would be an area the team would want to address. Even though it may be the strongest position on the roster, wide receiver is a position that has suffered injuries in recent years forcing the Bucs call upon their depth pieces. If receiver is on Tampa’s wishlist, an athletic talent like Tai Felton may be an option.

College career

Tai Felton’s collegiate career was an impressive and gradual crescendo. In his four years at Maryland, Felton accounted for an increase in catches, yards, and touchdowns each season— Culminating in a senior year which consisted of 96 grabs, 1,124 yards, nine scores, and First-team All-Big Ten honors.

Across four seasons of college football, Felton amassed 17 touchdowns, on 172 receptions, with 2,207 yards.

NFL Draft Pre-game

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Participating at the NFL Scouting Combine, Tai Felton ran a blazing 4.37 40-yard dash. Feltons’ other notable measurables–

Height: 6′ 1″

Weight: 183 lbs

Arms: 30″

Hands: 9″

Vert: 39.5″

Broad: 10′ 10″

Flips: 1

Felton placed his athleticism on full display in his workouts to match the work put on tape.

According to Lance Zierlein via NFL.com, while he has a list of weaknesses that mostly revolve around a lack of strength/abilty to deal with physical play, Felton’s is noted to offer some fairly significant positives— Including his ability to track the ball in flight and create impressive YAC.

Tai Felton, as a fit for the Buccaneers

The Buccaneers have talent on top of talent at the wide receiver position and have for quite a few years now, however, a large portion of that talent is older and the team is coming off a season where the top-end of that talent spent a significant amount of time dealing with injuries.

Based on Todd Bowles’ comments, the team does not want to be caught with their pants down, lacking depth, should injuries strike again. Their approach would appear to be one most people reference with pass-rushers— “You can never have too many.”

If the Buccaneers are taking that mentality into 2025 with their offensive weapons, despite the fact that defense is the side of the ball that needs more help, perhaps Jason Licht and co. will assign more resources to ensuring they don’t run out of “horses” for Baker Mayfield and Josh Grizzard to weild.

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