Who Is The Most Underrated Bucs Player?

 

Pewter Report’s PR Roundtable
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A new Pewter Report Roundtable debuts every Tuesday on PewterReport.com. Each week, the Pewter Reporters tackle another tough Bucs question. Who Is The Most Underrated Bucs Player?

Scott Reynolds: Ben Bredeson Is Underappreciated By Tampa Bay Fans

Do you know which Buccaneer actually had the best record last year? Left guard Ben friggin’ Bredeson.

That’s right. The least talented and less heralded Tampa Bay offensive lineman started 11 games last year while missing six games due to injury. He was involved in seven of the team’s eight wins and was only on the field for four of the team’s nine losses. Defensive tackle Calijah Kancey was actually 3-0 in games played last year, but Bredeson contributed to winning more than double that amount of games before he succumbed to hamstring and knee injuries, and the Bucs went 7-4 record in games that he played in.

Bredeson played in every game during the team’s hot 6-2 start before the bye week and then got hurt after the opening drive against New England in Week 10 coming out of the bye. Bredeson missed the next two games – road losses at Buffalo and at Los Angeles – before returning to action versus Arizona, which Tampa Bay won. Then the seventh-year veteran got hurt in the home loss to New Orleans in Week 14 and was done for the year.

So Bredeson missed the losses at Carolina and Miami as well as the home win versus the Panthers. So in games he missed, the Bucs went 1-5. While everyone was freaking out about the team missing Kancey, right guard Cody Mauch, running back Bucky Irving and wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin Jr., maybe Bredeson was missed more than we think.

Bredeson signed a reasonable three-year, $22 million deal before the start of the 2025 campaign after a really good season on a one-year, prove-it deal the year before in Tampa Bay. He proved worthy of his contract extension immediately by starting the first three games at center for Graham Barton, who kicked out to left tackle to replace the injured Tristan Wirfs, and playing very well. Bredeson’s versatility along the interior is a big plus for the Buccaneers.

Bredeson didn’t have particularly great grades per Pro Football Focus, earning a 53.4 overall grade, a 76 pass protection grade and a 44.1 run blocking grade for the 2025 season. But the Bucs value him way more than PFF does. And Bredeson still has the chance to improve and get better. He may not be an elite athlete, but his 6-foot-5, 315-pound frame finds a way to get the job done. And look at this picture of Bredeson – his thighs are as big as Wirfs’!

Matt Matera: Jalen McMillan Can Unleash This Bucs Offense

He may not have been able to show much of it last season due to a horrifying neck injury that kept him out until December of last season, but when Jalen McMillan is on, he brings another dimension to the Bucs’ offense. McMillan proved with a 100-yard game last year that he is primed to be even bigger and better for the 2026 season.

With much of the attention going to Chris Godwin Jr. and Emeka Egbuka, McMillan will get very favorable matchups. He’s also a viable option to go deep and make big plays if the Bucs want to strike fast. Remember the player that had seven touchdowns in the final five games of the season when he was a rookie? That player still exists, and that’s who the Bucs are going to get in 2026.

Somebody on Tampa Bay’s offense is going to have to pick up the slack when scoring touchdowns this season. Let McMillan be that guy. The best is still yet to come for him, and given Godwin’s time in the league, McMillan is the eventual No. 2 on this team behind Egbuka. That’s not a bad spot to be as it’ll still come with tons of production.

Adam Slivon: Luke Goedeke Deserves More Credit For Lifting Bucs’ O-Line

One of the most valuable positions in football is left tackle. With quality blindside protection at a premium, the Bucs are fortunate to have All-Pro Tristan Wirfs to lean on there. What flies under the radar is the man who took over at right tackle to give the offensive line two quality tackles – Luke Goedeke. Entering 2026, Goedeke is far removed from being the player he was as a rookie in 2022. After struggling at left guard, Tampa Bay made the wise choice to move him back to the right side and it has paid dividends for the team – and himself.

The offensive line is considered to be a strength of the team now, but it was far from viewed that way when the team began constructing a new version of it in 2023. Moving Goedeke was just part one of an overhaul that also consisted of drafting Cody Mauch to pair next him and later signing Ben Bredeson. In the three seasons since he switched spots, “Luke The Lifter” has fortified the other side of the trenches. Pro Football Focus has graded him between being the 25-30th best offensive tackle at either spot in the league, with his overall grade increasing each year.

While not an elite player, he is firmly an above-average right tackle who has a chance to earn a Pro Bowl nod or two during his career. While many Bucs fans surely appreciate Goedeke’s development, his improvements are not talked about nearly enough. They are what earned him a four-year, $90 million contract extension to keep him around in Tampa Bay for the long haul.

Plenty of credit rightfully goes to Tristan Wirfs, and even his flowers pale in comparison to those given to Baker Mayfield and his cast of offensive weapons. What sets that in motion is the work of the offensive line, with Goedeke’s play and attitude being a key reason why.

Bailey Adams: Somehow, I Think It’s Chase McLaughlin

In just three short years, Chase McLaughlin has cemented himself as the best kicker in Bucs history. I don’t think it gets talked about enough by Tampa Bay fans, and perhaps the reason is that everyone is secretly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s that, or it’s akin to a bear walking into your house and not noticing you, which leaves you in a position where you don’t want to draw any attention to the bear out of fear that doing so will see everything go wrong. Is that a perfect analogy? No. Is it a good one? I don’t think so. Is that even a situation? Hardly. But you get the point.

McLaughlin was the definition of a journeyman before he came to Tampa Bay. He spent time with the Chargers, 49ers and Colts during the 2019 season, then split the 2020 season between the Jaguars and Jets. He was with the Browns in 2021 before going back to the Colts in 2022. He wasn’t even that good at any of those stops, with his best field goal percentage of any stint being 87.5% over only three games and eight attempts with the 49ers in 2019.

Then came 2023, when the Bucs needed a kicker to replace Ryan Succop, who helped them break their longtime kicking curse and played a key role in their Super Bowl LV run. McLaughlin came in and somehow became a massive upgrade over Succop, with all due respect to Succop. McLaughlin connected on 29 of his 31 field goal attempts (93.5%) and had a 7-of-8 mark from 50+ yards. And that was only the beginning of “Money McLaughlin.”

In 2024, he was 30-of-32 (93.8%) overall and 8-of-10 from 50+. Last year was a down year by the previous standards he had set in Tampa Bay, yet he was 32-of-38 (84.2%) and made an incredible 11 field goals from 50+ yards with only one miss from distance. Over three years, McLaughlin has hit on 91 of his 101 field goal attempts (90.1%) and has become the franchise leader in field goals of 50+ yards, going an exceptional 26-of-30 to serve as a legitimate weapon for the team’s offense. Get within 50-60 range and you’ve set yourself up for at least three points.

Honestly, though, McLaughlin being underrated is less about how Buccaneer fans see him and more about the lack of attention he gets across the league. It’s Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker and Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey who get all the buzz. And it’s not that they don’t deserve it. It’s that McLaughlin has been right up there with Dicker in terms of accuracy and while he isn’t hitting from the same distances that Aubrey is (he’s a machine with longs of 60, 65 and 64 over the last three seasons, respectively), his accuracy from deep is impressive in its own right.

What McLaughlin has done for the Bucs has kind of just become normal. But it shouldn’t be looked at like that, especially given this franchise’s history in the kicking game. So, in terms of being overlooked by the wider NFL world and sometimes underdiscussed by fans in Tampa, Money McLaughlin is my pick for most underrated Buccaneer.

Josh Queipo: Of Course, It’s Cade Otton

When the Pester Report team originally landed on this topic for our PR Roundtable this week the phrasing was, “Which Bucs player is the most overlooked?” And I was going to do three paragraphs of short jokes centered on Tez Johnson. But they adjusted the wording and now I digress. The long and short of it comes down to a couple of high-profile drops/misgrabs have made Otton out to be Public Enemy Number One in the world of Bucs fans.

People love a flashy tight end who can put up gaudy counting numbers. And yet lots of people forget that Otton did that for a time when he was asked to after Mike Evans and Chris Godwin Jr. went down with injuries in 2024. From Weeks 7-10 of that year Otton was one of the best receiving tight ends in football:

Targets – 38 (2nd)
Receptions – 30 (2nd)
Yards – 293 (2nd)
TD – 3 (2nd)
Yards Per Route Run – 1.90 (10th)

When the offense asked him to be the engine of the passing game he responded like a college kid’s Honda, chugging along without stopping. But that isn’t what makes him awesome. It’s his amphibian-like ability to adapt to whatever the offense needs him to be.

Juxtapose that four-game stretch with what the Bucs needed him to be last year as the offensive line worked through new lineup after new lineup and lost a total of 11 games from their starting tight ends. Otton was asked to stay in and chip and block to give Baker Mayfield precious extra tenths of a second. Otton obliged at a high level.

He is one of the better starting blocking tight ends in the game. Is he top five at any one skill? Probably not. But there isn’t a single thing tight ends are responsible for that he is below average at.

And to boot, when he is in the game there is zero tip-off to the defense at what the Bucs might run. Deep pass, short pass, gap run, zone run. Split him out wide, run him in-line or put him in the slot. Otton can effectively execute any assignment from any alignment. That’s real value to an offensive coordinator.