The Tampa Bay Buccaneers add a top linebacker Devin White out of LSU with the fifth pick of the NFL Draft. How does he fit in with this team?
Devin White shined at LSU and that is putting it mildly. He finished his career at LSU with 286 total tackles, 28.5 for loss and 8.5 sacks. He is a strong inside linebacker that fills in quite a few holes for the Bucs, a team that has a large amount of need on the defensive side of the ball. He and all of his horses are about to make their way down to Tampa Bay.
White is extremely athletic and an overall explosive playmaker that this team needs. They have a couple names that are on that team in that position, but they needed a young impact linebacker and they went out and got the top guy on the linebacker board.
White is great off the blitz and can run with anyone and everyone. Yes, he makes some mental errors, but those can be smoothed out with the right coaching and we can all just hope that he finds that coaching in Tampa.
Grade: B
I give this pick a B, mostly because there were other positions of need that were available for this team, especially an edge rusher or a quarterback. Yeah, they have Jameis Winston, but let’s be real he isn’t the franchise quarterback that everyone was expecting him to be and Dwyane Haskins could have been that guy easily.
In terms of defensive end, they could have grabbed Josh Allen out of Kentucky, who was picked up by Jacksonville soon afterward. White is a good pick, but not the home run the Bucs could have hit.