Buccaneers edge rusher Yaya Diaby came into the league with a reputation for setting the edge against the run, but his rookie production showed he can do plenty more than that. Last season, Diaby finished tied for eighth in the NFL in quarterback pressures and led Tampa Bay with seven sacks. Even so, that pressure total outpaced his sack count by a wide margin, and that gap became a major focus for him this offseason.
Diaby said he spent the summer working on the part of the job that turns disruption into drive-killers.
“Just focusing on pass rush, man, and finishing,” Diaby said, via the team website. “That’s just been my whole scenario.
Everything everybody’s been saying: ‘He can’t finish. He gets a lot of pressure.’
That’s just been my whole thing this offseason, trying to find ways to finish, trying to find ways to rush smart. Having guys like Calijah [Kancey], you’ve got to be able to rush smart and be where you need to be.
It’s going to help me out a lot.”
In Atlanta, Michael Penix Jr. is back practicing without restrictions, but the timing apparently still isn’t right for him to suit up in Week 1. The Falcons announced that veteran QB Tua Tagovailoa will start and that Penix will be inactive. Penix, the former first-round pick, said he told HC Kevin Stefanski he wasn’t ready yet.
“I had that conversation and I just told him, ‘I’m not where I want to be right now,'” Penix explained via USA Today’s Matt Urben. “I want to be able to be 100 percent so I can help this team win football games. And I’m really close.”
He added that he wants more strength and more confidence in the knee before he gets back on the field.
“I want to be stronger. I want to be able to be out there and give the team 100 percent.
And if I don’t feel like I can do that, that’s not fair for this team, that’s not fair for this organization,” Penix added. “I want to make sure whenever I am out there, I’m 100 percent and there’s no doubt in my mind that I trust my knee and I trust to go out there and help this team win football games.”
In Carolina, Darren Waller says this offseason has been different from the one that led into his stint with the Dolphins last season, which came after he ended his retirement. Waller pointed to a lack of a proper football foundation as something that hurt him a year ago.
“I think last year there was definitely a step back, probably in my long speed,” Waller explained to Panthers.com. “Just because I showed up to training camp with no football foundation of training to the Dolphins.
I think it was just all just a byproduct of showing up playing a football season without laying that entire foundation, thinking you can just show up like the old dude playing pickup at the gym. It’s going to be tough.”
Panthers coach Dave Canales came away impressed after watching Waller through camp, and he described the veteran tight end in simple terms.
“Big and fast,” Canales noted. “The offensive stuff, the playbook stuff has been really smooth, really easy for him, and we have totally different terminology than where he was at in Miami before, but an intelligent guy, hard worker, so he’s been fantastic from a mental standpoint.
And then physically, he looks great, he looks fast…when you look at Darren, you watch him cover ground, and you’re like, ‘Hey, he hit 20.8 today on his GPS on this route,’ and you’re like, he was running that fast? You don’t realize it.
But that’s been cool for Bryce Young to be able to see how his angles change and how to throw it to him, and I’m excited to see what he can bring.”
In Other News...
Bryce Young Trade Still Haunts The Panthers For One Reason
The 2023 deal that sent the No. 1 overall pick to Carolina is still one of the defining moves of the Bryce Young era, because it did not just land the Panthers their quarterback, it set Chicago up with the kind of draft capital that can reshape a roster for years. The Bears turned those picks into a wave of players, including Caleb Williams, Darnell Wright, Tory Taylor, Tyrique Stevenson and Luther Burden, giving the trade a footprint that keeps growing well beyond draft weekend.
For Carolina, the lingering sting is not only about Youngs early progress, but about how much the other side has already gotten from the transaction. Chicagos haul has produced more immediate depth and impact, while the Panthers are still waiting for the move to fully justify itself on their end. Even so, this is the kind of trade that can look different a year from now if Young keeps developing and Carolina starts cashing in on the quarterback it paid so dearly to land. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Secondary Could Get Even Scarier With This Early Projection
A new 2027 NFL mock draft from Bleacher Reports Scouting Department has already put the Panthers in a familiar place: eyeing the secondary. The projection has Carolina taking Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore with the No. 7 overall pick, a move that would add a technically polished defender with the size and football IQ to fit alongside what the Panthers are trying to build on that side of the ball.
It is only an early projection, of course, but it speaks to how the Panthers could keep leaning into defense if the roster trends hold. Moore is the kind of cornerback evaluators tend to pair with a strong existing group, and that is what makes this idea interesting for Carolina - not just whether he would be a fit, but how much scarier the secondary could look if the front office ever decides to spend premium draft capital there. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Season May Come Down To One Overlooked Problem
The Panthers spent the offseason trying to give Ejiro Evero a defense with more answers, adding Jaelan Phillips and Devin Lloyd in an effort to raise the ceiling of a unit that has often had to make do with less. Evero has worked before with thinner rosters, and Carolinas hope is that a better talent base lets him turn that experience into something sturdier and more reliable this season.
For a team trying to lean on its defense, the real question is not whether the additions look good on paper. It is whether Evero can pull the pieces together quickly enough to make the group matter in meaningful games, because the Panthers season may hinge on how far this upgrade actually goes once the games start counting. [Read more 🡒]