The Center Must Hold For the Buccaneers In Week 1
Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports
It’d be easy to sleep on the Washington Commanders this weekend. After a 4-13 season that saw them land the No. 2 overall pick in the draft and fire their old regime, Washington is taking the long road back to contention. Take your pick of pundits, and chances are, they have the Commanders finishing in or near the basement of the NFC East.
But this is the NFL, and even a bad team has the potential to embarrass you if they catch you looking toward the next week. As bad as Washington was last year, they still managed to get the better of four opponents, after all.
So the Tampa Bay Buccaneers need to be ready to play in Week 1. They’ll have to brace themselves for what’s coming, and two of the whats that are coming are Pro Bowlers Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne. The two defensive tackles are known for being disruptive on the interior, combining for 9.5 sacks, 30 quarterback hits, and 23 tackles for loss in 2023. And that was down from 19.0 sacks, 31 QB hits, and 34 TFL the year previous.
If the Bucs want to keep Baker Mayfield upright on Sunday, their new-look interior offensive line will need to gel right away. Enter rookie center Graham Barton, free agent acquisition Ben Bredeson, and second-year guard Cody “Steve the Pirate” Mauch.
It’s an especially crucial matchup for Barton, who is making his NFL debut in a deceptively tough role. Centers may be one of the more anonymous position groups in the league, but they’re also one of the most important on the field. Much like the quarterbacks, they’re responsible for reading the defense in order to call out adjustments to their O-Line comrades. They’re an extension of a coach on the field, on top of needing to make 60-70 clean snaps per game, all while being ready to block.
“The center has to be the brain,” explained then-Oklahoma Sooner center (currently Incarnate Word’s offensive line coach) Ty Darlington in a 2015 ESPN article about the mental aspects of the position. “He has to be the smartest guy up front, if not the smartest guy on the field, to be able to adapt and make decisions under fire.”
It’s already low-key crazy for a rookie to step into this spot and face two Pro Bowlers right off the bat. But on top of that, Barton played at left tackle for much of the later part of his career at Duke. But while Liam Cohen told the media on Thursday that he expects Barton’s season to be a work-in-progress to some extent, the coordinator proclaimed his faith in his new center’s smarts and skills.
“He’s learning something new every day, especially going up against that defensive unit that we went up against all of training camp,” Coen observed. He also noted that right tackle Robert Hainsey, who has been pressed into center duty for Tampa before, is also lending his wisdom to Barton as he prepares for the role.
“To have Hainsey right there with him and able to communicate the things that he’s seen… Those are experiences Graham hasn’t had yet, but Hainsey has been able to give him things to maybe look forward to and be able to kind of see in the future,” said Cohen. “[Barton’s] going to learn from every rep that he plays. Hopefully [he’ll] take a step each game… that’s the goal.”
While it’s great to have help in Hainsey and All-Pro Tristan Wirfs at the tackles, the guys sandwiched between Barton and the tackles need to do their part as well. Mauch, the Bucs’ second-rounder in 2023, got thrown into the fire last season, playing every offensive snap. He proved he could play last season, but now he must take the next step. Mauch allowed eight sacks (tied for first among guards, per Pro Football Focus) and 57 pressures. Barton could do his job, but if Mauch keeps this porous play up, the Commanders’ interior defensive duo will be feasting on Mayfield.
Bredeson is a veteran, but he’ll also need to prove he can be a full-time player. After a 2022 season that saw the former New York Giant perform well in a part-time role (56.7 PFF grade), Bredeson appeared to get exposed in 2023 when his snap count nearly doubled from 542 to 1,014. His PFF grade was an abysmal 42.5, which ranked 123rd (one spot behind Mauch) among 136 guards last season. He also surrendered five sacks (tied for ninth among guards) and his 39 pressures were the eighth-most allowed.
But to their credit, each of these three players had strong preseasons, albeit, in small sample sizes. In a combined 99 offensive snaps, Barton earned a PFF grade of 84.6, while Mauch (71.4) and Bredeson (79.7) each performed much better than they did in the regular season last year. It might not be much to go on, but it at least gives some credence to the idea that Coen isn’t bluffing when he projects confidence in this group.
“We’ve kind of thrown the kitchen sink at these guys since Day 1. They’ve handled it,” the coordinator declared. We’ll see how well those words — and the interior of the Bucs’ O-Line — hold up on Sunday.
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