With the tush push here to stay (at least for another year), every team other than the Eagles has two potential objectives: (1) come up with a way to do it; and/or (2) come up with a way to stop it.
Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles recently explained that one of the team’s most prominent post-draft signings — defensive tackle Desmond Watson — wasn’t added to counter the Eagles’ signature play when the two teams meet in Week 4.
“To judge him right now is very early, and we didn’t get him for the tush push — we got him because we really thought he could play,” Bowles said, via Jenna Laine of ESPN.com. “It’s just a matter of getting him to the point where he can play more than two or three plays [per drive].”
That’s the balance the Bucs are hoping to strike, between keeping him big while also making sure he’s not too big to handle the physical demands of taking repeated NFL snaps.
“Right now, we just have to see how long he can stay on the field, and [we] put him on a program where we think he can make some progress,” Bowles said. “We didn’t get him to say, ‘Hey, we have to put you on the field right now.’ It’s, ‘Hey, we can try to put you on this program and see what we can come up with and see if we can get our endurance better,’ and have him become a better player that way, then kind of see where he is.”
Still, Watson has plenty of work to do to parlay his position on the oversized 90-man offseason collection of players into a 53-man roster spot, especially since he arrives without the inherent benefit of the doubt that a draft pick often receives.
Watson nevertheless stands out, literally and figuratively, as a player whose unprecedented size can be an asset.
“We just haven’t seen someone that size,” Bucs defensive line coach Charlie Strong said. “He works, and he don’t mind working. I know with his size, everybody wants to make a big deal about it. But our players — even the guys who are around him right now in our room — they just look at him like, ‘He’s just like us. He’s got to go about his work and do his job.’”
Watson was listed at 437 pounds last year at Florida. He weighed in at 464 pounds during the Florida Pro Day workout. He said during the team’s rookie minicamp that he had lost 27 pounds to get back to 437.
On the Tampa Bay official online roster, Watson is listed at 264 pounds. Assuming someone accidentally transposed numbers (or tried to divide by the actual number by two and miscalculated), the actual reading is either 426. Or 462.
We’ll stick with 437, for present purposes. Coupled with Vita Vea (who is officially 347 pounds — which perhaps could mean 437 or 473 or even 734), that gives the Bucs 784 pounds that can be positioned at the tip of the tush-push spear.
Again, Watson first has to make the 53-man roster. If he does, it will make for an interesting moment when the Bucs host the Eagles, and when the Eagles are in a short-yardage or goal-line situation.
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