The Bucs didn’t exactly enter this season with a shortage of pass-rush questions. Last offseason, the conversation was all about finding a real edge threat. Six games in, though, they may already have one sitting in-house: David Walker.
Walker has been the clearest bright spot in Tampa Bay’s front. He has four sacks, which leads the team, and he followed up his strongest outing yet with seven tackles and two sacks in Week 6 against the Steelers. For all that production, he has still logged just 99 defensive snaps on the season, only 26% of the unit’s total.
That usage is the head-scratcher. The tape and the numbers both say Walker deserves more work, and Todd Bowles said Monday that the Bucs are trying to get him on the field more often.
“Yeah, game plan-wise, we ramp it up every week - he’s been playing that well,” Bowles said about Walker’s usage. “We give him the plays we can give him, but it’s been ramped up every week.
Depending on the game plan and what the other team does and personnel-wise, you want to see him get more reps in there. We intend to do that, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way depending on the game.”
Walker’s snap count has climbed in steps. He didn’t play in Week 1, then got nine defensive snaps in Week 2 and 19 in Week 3.
He turned those chances into sacks in both games. Over the last four weeks, he has been on the field for between 31.7% and 40% of the snaps, but his production still suggests there’s more there if Tampa Bay is willing to lean in further.
The case for a bigger role is hard to miss. Mike Renner pointed out that Walker’s 26.3% pass-rush win-rate leads the entire NFL, and PFF has him graded as the seventh-best edge rusher at 82.6 overall. Against Pittsburgh, he played a season-high 28 snaps, which ranked third among the Bucs’ edge players behind Yaya Diaby and Rueben Bain Jr.
That production stands out even more because Walker has looked more disruptive than Diaby, who has stalled in a contract year and has yet to record a sack in 2026. The simplest answer seems obvious: keep rotating Walker and Bain more heavily on the outside. Bowles, though, framed it as a package-by-package decision.
“Depending on the package,” Bowles said. “He was third in that package rotation [against Green Bay]. There are different rotations where guys’ reps get amped up a little bit.”
After the Steelers game, Walker kept his own comments straightforward. He said the key is taking advantage of the chances that come his way.
“Just making the most of the opportunities,” Walker said. “Coach [Todd Bowles] is putting us in the right position and I’m just trying to win my one-on-ones whenever I get in.
And the team, as a D-Line, we just work together. We call it four equals one and that’s what’s been giving us all success.”
That “four equals one” message has been a running theme on this defense, with Bowles saying before the season that he wanted more from the four-man rush. So far, the front hasn’t fully delivered on that idea.
Rueben Bain Jr. and Al-Quadin Muhammad just picked up their first sacks, while Yaya Diaby, Vita Vea, and Calijah Kancey are still without one. Even generating steady pressure had been an issue before the latest game.
Tampa Bay’s 1-5 start has left little margin for error, and the Bucs still have work to do if they want to climb back into the NFC South race. Walker said the locker room has to keep leaning on each other.
“It’s adversity,” Walker said about the team’s poor start. “Take it out of football, [you face] adversity every day in your life.
It’s about who is going to show up. Like I said, these guys in the room are the guys we are going to battle with.
We’ve got to lean on each other. The season is long - we’ve got 12 more.
We just got to prove ourselves right.”
For now, Walker has already done his part. The next step is whether Bowles gives him enough snaps to keep doing damage.
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