Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians spoke with the media yesterday via Zoom. During that Zoom meeting the topic of depth at the center position came up.
The Buccaneers offensive line has been, well, offensive for quite awhile. This is where I could throw stats and analytics at you to show you just how bad they’ve been. No need for that, we’ve all seen it with our own two eyes.
Back To Arians
Arians seemed confident in his depth at the position, citing that Zack Bailey and Aaron Stinnie can both snap the ball. He went on to say he likes the two rookies, John Molchon and Zach Shackelford as well. Finishing up with his response Arians also stated Ali Marpet could fill in if necessary.
Buccaneers starting center Ryan Jensen has been one of the few bright spots on the offensive line. His tenacious play does on occasion result in penalties but the guy plays the position well. Jensen takes the role of protecting his quarterback very seriously regardless of who that quarterback is.
The issue here in my opinion is that the Buccaneers seem fine with the aforementioned back-ups. If Jensen were to go down, are any of you really comfortable with Stinnie or Bailey filling in? Do the names Molchon or Shackelford make you feel any better?
It’s fair to say coach Arians knows more about football than any of us. Could Stinnie or any of the others fill in adequately? Sure, but lets be honest, sounds like the only legit backup for Jensen is the starting left guard Marpet. That seems problematic.
