Buccaneers veteran praises new teammates in secondary shakeup

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were a tale of two stories last year. Their offense was a top-five unit with a balanced attack that saw their running game become one of the best in the league. A feel-good story, if you will. On the other side — perhaps a horror story of sorts — The defense struggled mightily in 2024, with the Bucs lacking in getting to the quarterback, coverage by linebackers in space, and a secondary that was riddled with injury and inconsistency.

One of the constant pieces for the Bucs' defense was cornerback Zyon McCollum. McCollum started the year off strong but wasn't quite able to live up to the expectations he placed on himself before the season began.

McCollum will now be entering a contract season with the Buccaneers, and he will do so with a couple of new faces to help try and turn around a porous secondary.

Those new additions came in the form of 2025 NFL Draft picks Benjamin Morrison out of Notre Dame and Jacob Parrish out of Kansas State. Following the Bucs' first OTA practice, McCollum gave his thoughts on his new running mates.

"Morrison is definitely detail-oriented. He's a smart guy, he's sharp, he's always asking questions. He's a little bit quiet – I mean, all rookies are a little bit quiet but he's definitely in the meeting rooms paying attention, he's pulling us to the side on the sidelines asking us what we see in certain sets," McCollum said.

"Jacob, I can tell he's just a dog. He's going to work, he's not going to complain about anything. The coaches, whatever they ask of him, he's going to do it with no questions and he's going to do it at a high level and he's catching up pretty fast."

Seeing the rookies take to guys already in the locker room and focus on improving themselves while garnering the knowledge it takes to perform at a high level is great to see. We have already heard rumblings of Parrish's ability to take the ball away, and if he and Morrison can supplement each other, it should only help in achieving head coach Todd Bowles' mission of getting more takeaways.

The rookies may not be immediately tasked with starting, but they will likely be in the rotation. McCollum likes what he is seeing thus far from the young guys and thinks they will only help elevate the rest of the secondary and defense.

"Off the bat, it's new energy. In the room you can just kind of feel it – the intensity is just starting to rise up and it's good," McCollum said. "To embrace it as a room and to come together, I mean, everybody is fighting to be that next level and get to that next level."

The Buccaneers did what they had to do to improve their defense from a season ago. Bowles is looking to get more pressure and create more turnovers, and the team's new additions could go a long way in being able to get back to the Bucs' defense that helped lead them to a Super Bowl back in 2020.

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