The Buccaneers may have stumbled into a timely answer for one of their lingering preseason problems.
Tampa Bay’s offensive line depth has already shown cracks, and that makes the recent release of Cody Ford by the Bengals worth a hard look. Ford is not some unknown flyer. He’s a former Oklahoma teammate of Baker Mayfield from Mayfield’s 2017 Heisman season, and he brings something the Bucs can use right now: experience at both guard and tackle.
Ford has been in the NFL for seven years since the Bills drafted him in 2019, and he spent his last three seasons in Cincinnati. The versatility alone makes him interesting at this stage of the preseason, especially for a team trying to patch together reliable backup options up front.
Mayfield’s Oklahoma connection adds a neat wrinkle here. Back then, Ford was part of the line that helped protect him during that award-winning season. Now, Tampa Bay could ask Mayfield to help sell Jason Licht on bringing that old teammate into the building on waivers.
The need is obvious after the Bucs’ backup offensive line struggled against the Chiefs on Saturday night. If Tampa Bay is looking for a depth upgrade, Ford makes sense as a player to at least kick the tires on.
That said, he isn’t arriving with a spotless recent track record. Ford started 15 of 16 games as a rookie, then got hurt.
He missed all but seven games the next season, though he started each of those. Over the last five seasons, the health has been better, but the workload has dropped.
In that span, Ford has only 20 starts and has appeared in all but nine games. So the question isn’t just whether he can stay on the field. It’s whether he can get back to the level he flashed earlier in his career.
The Bengals cut him on Monday even though their own offensive line has been a problem. That doesn’t scream “bust”; it just says there may still be more here than he was able to show in Cincinnati.
After the move, Bengals fans took to social media to thank him and wish him well. Buccaneers fans would gladly take that same outcome if Tampa Bay decides Ford is the fix for a shaky spot on the roster.
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Among the names under the most pressure are second-round pick Braswell, tight end Culp and running back Tucker, all of whom are fighting to hold off challengers for a place on the 53-man roster. Their recent playing time has made the picture feel more unsettled than settled, and with camp reps getting harder to come by, every practice snap now carries a little more weight. [Read more 🡒]