Does Cade Otton Still Have To Be The Bucs’ Iron Man In 2026?

The countdown to the Bucs’ 2026 season is on. Right now, we’re:

77 days away from Bucs regular season kickoff
47 days away from Bucs preseason kickoff
31 days away from Bucs training camp

In the lead-up to training camp, Pewter Report’s Bailey Adams will be diving into storylines for 26 key figures who will be crucial to the Bucs’ success in 2026.

Today, the series continues with tight end Cade Otton.

26 For ‘26: Cade Otton Bucs Storylines In 2026

Will Cade Otton Live Up To His New Contract… Or Outperform It?

One of the more divisive moves the Bucs made this offseason was re-signing Otton to a three-year, $30 million deal. And it’s divisive for… some reason? Otton’s $10 million average per year (APY) has him 15th among tight ends throughout the league. That seems about right, doesn’t it? Contrary to what some will argue, the 2022 fourth-round pick has rounded into a complete tight end for the Bucs, doing everything well while remaining remarkably durable.

Are there more explosive playmakers at the tight end position than Otton? Sure. But he’s been Mr. Reliable for Tampa Bay, especially when the team has suffered through a rash of injuries at other positions. Think back to that midseason stretch in 2024 when the offense was without Mike Evans, Chris Godwin Jr. and Jalen McMillan. Otton was the one who remained, standing in there and serving as Baker Mayfield’s go-to guy for a few weeks to keep the offense (unfortunately not the whole team) afloat.

In fact, even beyond that stretch, Otton’s 77 first downs from 2023 to 2025 are only two fewer than Dalton Kincaid and six more than Zach Ertz.

That isn’t all bad for the 15th-highest-paid tight end in the NFL, is it? Not to mention, he’s evolved and improved into a good blocker. He’s an all-around good player! He’s just not flashy, and recency bias means a bad moment or two last year – during a stretch when the Bucs as a collective group completely forgot how to make plays and win – suddenly made him a bad tight end and made his lack of glove-wearing a national emergency.

So, on the question of whether he’ll live up to his new three-year, $30 million contract or outperform it, he should be able to live up to it at the very least. And there’s a very good case to be made that he’s capable of outperforming it. Otton is still Tampa Bay’s TE1, and while the team hopes he has more help this year with the addition of sixth-round pick Bauer Sharp (more on that later), it’s the fifth-year tight end out of Washington who will continue to get the bulk of the snaps.

And really, as divisive of a player as he became in his first four years in red and pewter, if Otton continues to do the dirty work the way he has in years past and lives up to the 40-60 catches, 400-600 yards and 3-5 touchdowns he’s consistently totaled these last four seasons, that $10 million APY will be money well spent for the Bucs.

Will Cade Otton Still Have To Be The Bucs’ Iron Man In 2026?

This is one of the areas in which Cade Otton probably hasn’t gotten enough credit over the last three years. He has been a true iron man for the Bucs, leading all NFL tight ends since 2023 in snaps with 2,968. He played 803 snaps as a rookie, which came out to 70% of the offense’s total. But when he became Tampa Bay’s true TE1 in 2023, he played 1,064 snaps, equaling out to 97% of the offense’s total snaps.

Even with three games missed in 2024, Otton still played 856 snaps, or 92% of the offense’s total. And in playing 16 of the team’s 17 games last year, he totaled 993 snaps, good for 93%. The man just doesn’t come off the field, partly out of pure strength and durability and partly out of necessity. There hasn’t been a true F tight end on the roster in recent years, meaning Otton has been needed in 12 personnel (two tight end sets). And with no real quality in terms of receiving ability behind him in the tight end room, he has rarely come off the field in 11 personnel (one tight end sets), either.

Tampa Bay has needed Otton to be a workhorse, and he has obliged. But does he still have to be the offense’s iron man in 2026? Maybe not. Sixth-round pick Bauer Sharp – despite being a sixth-round pick – could be the key to unlocking a fresher Otton. As a natural move tight end, the rookie has a skill set that Ko Kieft and Payne Durham don’t possess, meaning you can pair him with one of those two in 12 personnel, giving Otton a break.

Or, as Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo outlined in a recent Saturday Scouting column, Sharp gives Tampa Bay different looks to go to in 12. Durham can be a true Y, Sharp can be a true F and Otton can be a natural Y who can flex into that F role.

As valuable as Otton’s durability has been in these last three seasons with his tight end-leading snap count, there’s also the fact that the team just gave him a new contract worth $10 million per year. So, keeping his legs fresh, playing to his true strengths rather than needing him to be everything for you at the tight end position and being able to be a little more selective about the situations you’re using him could mean a better No. 88 over the course of a full season.

Now, this all hinges on Sharp, which is a lot to put on a sixth-round rookie. He’ll need to be ready to see the field early the way some other late-round Buccaneer tight ends haven’t been able to lately. All signs point toward that being the case, as the former Southeastern Louisiana/Oklahoma/LSU man got off to a fast start in OTAs and mini-camp. But his quick ascension will need to continue. Otherwise, the Bucs may have to go right back to Cade Otton and ask him to put on the iron man suit yet again – something he’s proven he can be relied upon to do.

Does Cade Otton Have A Larger Role In The Bucs Offense This Year?

Cade Otton isn’t Kyle Pitts, so let’s get that out of the way. But in Zac Robinson’s offense, could Otton have a bigger role? It’s fair to wonder, and it might be fair to assume so given how much of an afterthought he was in Josh Grizzard’s offense last year. Now, Robinson and the Falcons leaned a lot more on Pitts last year largely out of necessity, and now that he’s in Tampa Bay, the offensive coordinator has more (and better) weapons at his disposal. But it does feel like there could be a bit more of involvement out of Otton nonetheless. The reason is three-fold.

On the one hand, Robinson will run a system similar to the one Liam Coen ran during his lone year as the Bucs’ offensive coordinator in 2024, and that year was the most productive of Otton’s four-year career. He set career highs in targets (87), receptions (59, which he matched in 2025… surprisingly?), yards (600), first downs (33) and yards per catch (10.2 avg.). His four touchdowns also tied the career high that he set in 2023 under Dave Canales.

It was also during that year and in that offense that Otton had the best stretch of his career, one that included his first career 100-yard game and then three touchdowns between the two games immediately after that. Granted, that was the aforementioned stretch in which the tight end had to be the offense for Tampa Bay with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan ineffective/sidelined. But that brings up point No. 2: the absence of Evans.

Without Evans, who left to become a 49er this offseason (a decision that led directly to Otton being able to re-sign in Tampa), the Buccaneer offense will need to find production in other ways. The cupboard isn’t bare by any means, as Godwin, McMillan, Emeka Egbuka, Tez Johnson and Ted Hurst make up a strong 1-5 for Tampa Bay. But there may be more targets for Otton without Evans. Or, in another way, there may be a deep enough rotation of weapons at receiver for defenses to account for that it creates more opportunities for Otton to produce.

And then there’s the final reason to believe there could be more of a role for Otton this year, and that ties the first two sections of this storylines article together. On the one hand, the Bucs just paid Otton $10 million per year. You don’t do that to ignore the player in the passing game, right? And with the potential for the 27-year-old tight end to be fresher and used more to his strengths thanks to the presence of Bauer Sharp, maybe we’re about to see the very best of Cade Otton in this 2026 Buccaneer offense.

Catch Up On Previous Installments Of Bailey Adams’ 26 For ’26 Series

Baker Mayfield
Bucky Irving
Kenny Gainwell
Chris Godwin Jr.
Emeka Egbuka
Jalen McMillan