Uriah Wesson 
Are you ready? We told you that we had some great things in the works at Win Daily Sports and now that the dust has settled on the NFL draft, we can take a long hard look at all 32 NFL teams so that we can go into the fantasy draft season and week one DFS and destroy the competition right out of the gate. We are going to cover every possible angle so that nothing surprises you. So, without further ado here is the 4th of 32. Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Fantasy Preview: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2020 Record: 11-5
Head Coach: Bruce Arians
Offensive Coordinator: Byron Leftwich
Defensive Coordinator: Todd Bowles
Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Fantasy Preview: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Overview:
I am going to be honest, I do not enjoy having to parse through the Bucs offense in any way shape or form. The 2020 Super Bowl Champions just have a wealth of talent to choose from and Tom Brady is the single best QB of all time when it comes to finding the open target wherever it may be. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, Scotty Miller, Cameron Brate, Rob Gronkowski, Ronald Jones, Leonard Fournette, Giovani Bernard. Do you see why this is a nightmare from a fantasy perspective?
Defensively the Buccaneers have been a consistent top three against the run and pass for several years now with Todd Bowles at the helm and there is nothing to indicate that is going to change. Up front they have, Ndamukong Suh, Vea Vita, an Will Gholston, Jason Pierre Paul, Shaq Barrett, and Devin White at linebacker, and Jamel Dean, Antione Winfield, and Jordan Whitehead in the secondary. If you guys spot a gap in their defense please tell me, I could use the help.
Scheme
Offense: Tom Brady and 80 other guys
Defense: 3-4 Base, Multiple Fronts, Multiple Cover Zero and Cover One Blitz Packages
Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Fantasy Preview: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Fantasy Targets:
Mike Evans: ADP 41.25
In order to be better at drafting your fantasy teams it is key to recognize your biases and I have a clear bias against Evans. Every year I target him he has underperformed against his ADP and every year I stay clear he does not. This may be the first year that bias will not play a roll for me. I just happen to be telling folks to let the Bucs be someone elses headache. In 2020 he had 70 catches for 1,006 yards and 13 touchdowns, but over half of those yards (517 of them) and 31 of those 70 grabs came in only four games. That inconsistency will only be worse with Antonio Brown fully involved in the offense and Chris Godwin not dealing with a finger injury.
Chris Godwin: ADP 45.91
Godwin is one of the top two or three slot receivers in the game right now and even hampered with injuries through most of the year he finished 2020 with 840 yards and seven touchdowns. If he played for anyone else he would be a top 25 overall selection but he suffers the same issues as the rest of the Bucs offense. There is too much depth. He only exceeded 100 yards once through the entire season and that was week 16 against the Falcons secondary that was largely practice squad players and some guys who were signed from the local flag football team in Atlanta.
Tom Brady: ADP 73.84
Tom Brady is likely going to be my only target on this entire team unless we have some ADP changes. Figuring out out which guy will have a big year of the 8 options is nearly impossible so just do yourself a favor and pick the guy who is throwing the ball. You know who Tom Brady is and you either think he can still play and you draft him. Or, you think father time will catch up and you do not. It is really that simple.
Ronald Jones: ADP 84.44
If you were to force me to pick a running back for the Bucs RoJo would be my choice. You are not going to get any kind of tangible ADP discount, I just think he is a better back. His yards per carry was over a full yard better than Fournette (5.1 compared to 3.8) and both Fournette and Jones are decent receivers out of the backfield. The downside (apart from depth) is that Bruce Arians will bench Jones for entire games out of nowhere because he missed a block or was late to a practice. It is so bad and so random it feels personal. In 2019 during one of Winston’s multiple five turnover games, he missed a read. Winston got a pass while Jones was almost completely removed from the offense and chastised publicly. I am just going to pass unless it is best ball.
Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Fantasy Preview: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Leonard Fournette: ADP 87.57
The one thing that we kind of had some consistency on with the Bucs backfield in 2020 was that Fournette was going to get more work than Jones in passing down situations. That is no longer a given. Brady went out and personally recruited Giovanni Bernard in the offseason to presumably fill the “James White” role. If you did not know any better you would assume that it was Bill Belichick who was the main driver of the maddening three and four running back by committee backfields. This is actually a preference that Brady shares wholeheartedly and he has gone out of his way to recreate this in Tampa. This is a nightmare of a backfield now so have fun pulling out your hair if you get in on it.
Antonio Brown: ADP 113.27
If you were to tell me that I HAD to draft a receiver from this Bucs squad this season the only one I would feel remotely comfortable with at their current ADP is AB. With a full offseason under his belt with Tampa and a quiet-ish offseason in what feels like an eternity for him, he is the only Buc who I think has a chance to exceed their value. in only four starts last year the seven-time pro bowl receiver caught 45 of his 62 targets for 483 yards and four touchdowns. His yards per reception were about two yards less than his career average (10.7 in 2020 compared to 13.3 over his career) but I think that has more to do with him getting familiar with the offense and getting himself into game shape. Year two with the Bucs should have a full playbook available to him and plenty of opportunities to exceed 1,000 yards and catch anywhere between 6-8 touchdowns. For a player that you can get as your fourth wide receiver in the 10th round he is the one receiver on the Bucs roster you can afford to take a shot on.
Rob Gronkowski: ADP 149.50
I do not want this to be misinterpreted so let me be clear, I am not saying they are in the same league right now but how many people are aware that Gronk and Kelce are only six months apart in terms of age? How about how he only has one more season under his belt? Sure, injuries have slowed him down but these two guys were neck and neck for years in terms of fantasy stat lines. He played a full 16 games last year and caught 45 balls for 623 yards and seven touchdowns (that’s TE 8 in PPR) and you can get him 13-14 rounds later. If you want to completely punt the position and load up on running backs and receivers or you are in a Tight End premium league there are plenty of worse options to go with.
Giovanni Bernard: ADP 182.50
I am not going any further and I am going to be brief. Bernard should only be drafted in the absolute deepest of PPR leagues as a final depth piece and even then I think I could find better options. Brady specifically wanted him to be on the team, he is sure-handed as his history in Cincy would suggest, and Brady needs a competent blocker in the backfield during passing down situations going into his age 44 season. ADP seems steep but I have drafted in a ton of best ball drafts and I personally have not seen in drafted in any of them so I am thinking the 182 climbs closer to 190-200 as we get closer to week one.
Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Fantasy Preview: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Final Thoughts:
This preview is probably the single most challenging one that I will have through all 32 teams. The Bucs are extremely deep to the point of absurdity, they have a quarterback who may be the best ever at spreading the ball around, and to top it all off they have a defense that can shut opposing teams down making the need to even score points an unnecessary luxury some weeks. When it comes to drafting your fantasy teams you want to aim for clear situations with narrow player pools and while the depth chart is “clear”, there is no wider player pool in the NFL. If you are drafting these guys I wish you the best of luck, because it is going to be a crapshoot.
Hope you enjoyed Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Fantasy Preview: Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Hopefully, you have learned something that you can make use of in your Dynasty, Best Ball, and Seasonal Drafts, and got the juices flowing a bit to help you take down a big one in week one when the time comes. I look forward to creating more content covering all 32 NFL teams. Any questions about the article, I will be available in the WinDaily Discord chat. Don’t forget to subscribe to the WinDaily Youtube channel and follow me @stoweby and @WinDailySports on Twitter to stay current and up to date on all of our fresh new content!
