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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers used their last game of the season to evaluate some young players, including a bunch of offensive linemen. The incomparable Stephen White went over the game tape and came away impressed with rookie tackle Kevin Pamphile.
By the way, the more Pamphile plays (and yes I saw the sack now STFU and learn smartass) the more perplexed I become as to why they waited
— Stephen White (@sgw94) December 30, 2014
So long to feed him game reps. This dude could very well be a starter next year. GREAT push in the run game at times. The pass blocking
— Stephen White (@sgw94) December 30, 2014
Mistakes hes made he was going to make anyway when he first started to play. OL always have to get adjusted to the speed of the game vs
— Stephen White (@sgw94) December 30, 2014
Practice. But I'll tell you what, and you can write it down and take a picture, I might be more excited about Pamphile at tackle than I am
— Stephen White (@sgw94) December 30, 2014
Dotson for next year right now. Yeah, I said it.
— Stephen White (@sgw94) December 30, 2014
Unfortunately, Pamphile barely got a shot this year. He played 11.9% of the offensive snaps this season -- fewer than Garrett Gilkey, fewer than Oniel Cousins, far fewer than Anthony Collins and Patrick Omameh. But more than Josh Allen, so I guess there's that?
This is kind of baffling given how absolutely horrible this offensive line was throughout the entire season. Perhaps Pamphile just looked bad in practice. Perhaps he did something to rub coaches the wrong way. I don't know. I do know he looked a whole lot better than Gilkey ever did, though -- and that if he'd gotten a few more snaps, maybe he'd developed a little more quickly.
The upside here is that the Bucs could conceivably enter next season with at least a few elements for a good offensive line in place. They have two tackles in Demar Dotson and Kevin Pamphile -- although relying on Pamphile to start based on just a handful of snaps may not be the smartest thing in the world.. They have a center who's had a bad season, but isn't disqualified from being a solid starter in Evan Dietrich-Smith. They also have a left guard in Logan Mankins who's overpaid, but who can also still be an NFL starter. Not a great one, but an okay one.
That leaves the right guard position, where they do need to replace Patrick Omameh. That's a necessity, really -- you can cover up Mankins and Dietrich-Smith's deficiencies, but you can't do that while also covering up Omameh's. The Bucs need a talent infusion at at least one position, and preferably multiple.
But it's good to know they at least have some extra talent in Kevin Pamphile.