Buccaneers Camp — Sep 3: Knowles Claimed to Replace Hayes

Tampa Bay claimed a cornerback off Kansas City's cuts this week, and the reason was a hole on special teams. Josh Hayes went to injured reserve with a return designation on Sunday — a four-game minimum — and the team's site has him leading the Buccaneers last season in kick-coverage stops, with 15, per Scott Smith and Brianna Dix. The claim is Kevin Knowles, a Florida State product who played 13 games for the Chiefs last year with 272 special-teams snaps, per Matt Matera at Pewter Report; Tampa Bay waived undrafted rookie inside linebacker Caden Fordham to fit him. Todd Bowles, on why, per Smith and Dix: "Heck of a special teams player. With Hayes down, we're probably short a gunner." He put three to four wins a season on special-teams play in the same session. The other secondary move was a reunion. Sean Murphy-Bunting — the corner Tampa Bay drafted in the second round in 2019, who started 36 games here and won Super Bowl 55 under Bowles — signed to the practice squad Monday after Arizona released him, per Jeremy Fowler at ESPN via Adam Slivon at Pewter Report, with the chance to be elevated early in the year. He missed all of 2025 with a torn knee ligament and was practicing by Wednesday. Bowles' read on the room with Hayes out, per JoeBucsFan: Jacob Parrish inside to nickel if needed, Benjamin Morrison — whom Bowles called healthy, and who was back at practice Tuesday — as the first outside backup.

The receivers are the question that did not move. Emeka Egbuka did not practice on September 1 — he has been out since a toe sprain in the first Jets joint practice nearly a month ago — and Jalen McMillan did not either, with the knee that has run through camp, per Scott Reynolds at Pewter Report. Bowles: "I'll feel better when I see next week. Right now, they're day by day, week by week." Our last episode told you Egbuka was being preserved for the opener. He still has not practiced, and Bowles put no date on it. If neither can go at Cincinnati, Reynolds writes, Tampa Bay would start Chris Godwin Jr., Ted Hurst III and Tez Johnson with Kam Johnson in reserve, and would likely elevate practice-squad receivers Dean Patterson IV or Garrett Greene. The good news from the same session: edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. returned with the sprained shoulder from the Jacksonville joint practices, and Bowles, per Reynolds: "He said he's feeling good, so we're going to roll with that."

The practice squad answered a question our last episode left open. We told you the third quarterback spot "went somewhere else." It came back a day later in a different form: quarterback Easton Stick, terminated as a vested veteran by Indianapolis on Sunday, signed to the practice squad Monday, per Smith — seven seasons in the league, six with the Chargers, and a 2025 in Atlanta working with current Buccaneers coaches Zac Robinson and T.J. Yates. 16 of 17 spots filled Monday, per Smith, the seventeenth available because rookie tackle Paul Rubelt carries the International Pathway exemption. Built around secondary depth, three safeties and a corner among them — safety Ifeatu Melifonwu, released Sunday as a vested veteran and back Monday; cornerback Roman Parodie, whose tip-drill interception against Kansas City we told you about, back Monday; running back Josh Williams, the loser of the third-back competition, back Monday. Two of the three names Pewter Report expected to return did; Jake Browning did not, and no reporting this week places him anywhere. By Wednesday the squad had turned over again: tight end Devin Culp and safety Rashad Wisdom released, tight end C.J. Dippre and safety Silas Walter signed, per Matera. Culp, a 2024 seventh-rounder we listed among the waived draft picks, was back for two days and gone again.

The three-back room has a reason of its own. Sean Tucker took a one-year, two-and-a-half-million-dollar fully guaranteed deal on cutdown day, a million and 20000 below the restricted tender he had been carrying, per Fowler via River Wells at Buccaneers On SI — which kept him over Williams, who went to the practice squad, per Bailey Adams at Pewter Report.

One Buccaneer was claimed elsewhere: linebacker Jack Pyburn, four sacks in the preseason, to Kansas City on Monday, per Josh Alper at Pro Football Talk — the only player Tampa Bay lost on waivers, per Caleb Skinner at Buccaneers On SI. The Sunday ledger by the team's own log: three released — Browning, long snapper Scott Daly, Melifonwu — and 30 waived, which is the distinction we gave you and it holds. One fix for the page: we filed Parodie with this year's undrafted rookies alongside Ayden Garnes. He was in camp here in 2025 and re-signed in mid-August, per the team's own write-up.

The front office spent the week explaining its two undrafted rookies at premium positions. Jason Licht on Jalon Daniels as the backup quarterback, per Smith: "That's an incredible accomplishment for an undrafted rookie to get that position. He earned it." And: "We'd rather have a very talented, prepared, inexperienced quarterback than going with experience just for the sake of saying the guy's experienced." Bowles on when he saw it: "Once he played the first preseason game, when he had a very good game there, it wasn't so much the plays he made, it was the poise he showed." Licht on cornerback Ayden Garnes, per Adam Slivon at Pewter Report: "Every day he was making a play on the ball — an interception — or multiple plays on the ball." And on keeping both: "It's awesome. It's a scout's dream." Bowles told a Tampa radio show the inside linebacker room has "more depth at that spot than we've had since I've been there," per JoeBucsFan. Christian Rozeboom's foot leaves him uncertain for the opener, though: "He's doing some running. I don't know how far away he'll be," per Smith and Dix.

Back in July we previewed this team as the favorite with no rebate — an earned eight-and-nine record the regression rules won't subsidize, a price that bets on health returning to the skill positions and on a fifth offensive coordinator in five years being a fix rather than churn. The numbers under it: an offense that ranked twentieth in expected points added per play — the measure of how much each snap moved the expected score — and 20-second throwing, with a defense seventeenth. Cut day kept the bet alive without settling it. This week the health half got worse, not better: both receivers sat, and the coach would not put a date on either. The roster is still built as if health returns. It has 10 days.

Next is the Bengals, Sunday, September 13, at Paycor Stadium. What to watch: whether Egbuka or McMillan is on the practice field by the weekend, and whether Murphy-Bunting gets elevated for the opener. The Recap follows the game.

_Data via nflverse._