There was news of a Tampa Bay Buccaneers signing at edge rusher ahead of the Week 11 matchup with the Buffalo Bills.
Tampa Bay Times beat reporter Rick Stroud reported on the defensive flyer, informing: “Bucs add LB Benton Whitley to the practice squad.”
This roster move was also confirmed by the Buccaneers’ Communications department on X.
The Buccaneers currently rank 10th in the NFL in sacks, but it’s not really due to any one player having a career year. More than anything else, credit goes to head coach Todd Bowles and his ability to create pressure utilizing different positions and players.
Whitley adds another potential rotational cog to the mix, although he’ll start out on the practice squad, as Stroud mentioned.
The 6-foot-4 Whitley has bounced around the league a bit after playing his college ball at Holy Cross. He accumulated 15.5 sacks in 43 appearances at Holy Cross.
Despite this, Whitley’s first career NFL sack has eluded him to this point.
Whitley started out his professional career with the Los Angeles Rams, but has also spent time with the Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, and Arizona Cardinals.
The edge rusher registered 2.5 preseason sacks with the Giants in 2024. In 6 regular season appearances with Minnesota and New York, Whitley logged 74 combined special teams snaps and 16 defensive snaps. His only recorded statistics are 1 fumble recovery and 1 pass breakup.
Now, Bowles and the Buccaneers will give Whitley a look ahead of the Week 11 matchup with the Bills.
As mentioned above, Bowles’ scheme has generated sacks, but no one player has specifically stood out in this regard.
The current sack leader is still YaYa Diaby with 4.0 sacks. That’s been the case since the bye week, and sack production hasn’t really moved much since then.
After Diaby, fellow edge defender Anthony Nelson has 3.0 sacks, while both linebacker Lavonte David and defensive tackle Vita Vea have 2.5 sacks. A collection of players then has 2.0 sacks after that, including linebacker SirVocea Dennis, safety Tykee Smith, defensive lineman Elijah Roberts, and cornerback Jacob Parrish.
Big-name veteran edge rusher Haason Reddick has missed time with injury and has only contributed 1.5 sacks. And there are also six Bucs players who have either been credited with 1.0 sack or a half-sack.
Needless to say, Tampa Bay needs to get some more production from its edge rushers against the Bills and beyond. Whether that’s from Diaby, Nelson, or a newcomer like Whitley getting an opportunity.
During the Week 10 loss against the New England Patriots, the Buccaneers only managed 1.0 sack, and that cost them as second-year quarterback Drake Maye threw for 270 yards and 2 touchdowns.
They’ll face a similar quarterback against the Bills. In many ways, Josh Allen is the original Maye — an athletic, big-bodied QB with a strong arm who is also difficult for pass rushers to bring down.
So, if the Buccaneers had trouble getting to Maye, they could easily struggle against Allen, too.
Week 11 is a big outing for both franchises. Allen and Buffalo have underperformed at 6-3, trailing the Patriots for the division crown. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay leads its division at 6-3, but is coming off a loss and would like to get back on track.
This was the year that Geno Smith was supposed to prove that his first couple of years as the starter for the Seattle Seahawks were not a fluke, but the opposite has been true. In nine games with the Las Vegas Raiders, Smith has thrown 11 touchdowns to 12 interceptions and led the team to a 2-7 record.
The Raiders play a really bad Dallas Cowboys defense on Monday Night Football in Week 11, so if Smith can’t finally post some good numbers, it won’t bode well for his future. At this point, it might not even matter.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell believes that it is more likely that Smith is one-and-done with the Raiders than it is that he comes back for another season.
“It would be a surprise if Smith made it to a second season with the Raiders as the starting quarterback,” Barnwell wrote. “But there are explanations that can be made for his struggles. Smith hasn’t had a healthy Brock Bowers for most of the season, and it’s no surprise that his two best games have come when the team’s franchise tight end was healthy against the Patriots and Jaguars. The Raiders have fielded replacement-level tackles since Kolton Miller went down because of an ankle injury in Week 4. And Chip Kelly’s return to the NFL as Vegas’ offensive coordinator has been a major disappointment, with the Raiders struggling to run or find reliable ways to get their best players the ball.”
An issue with moving off of Smith is that he has an $18.5 million dead cap hit next season, and the Raiders will have to pay him an additional $8 million if they keep him on the roster after the start of the league year in March.
If the Raiders find a new starting quarterback, Barnwell did point out that Smith has value as a backup.
“The question for the Raiders is whether they’d want to pay an additional $8 million to keep Smith as their backup in 2026,” Barnwell wrote. “He was already a well-established and respected backup before getting his opportunity to replace Russell Wilson in Seattle, and Smith could probably expect to land a contract in that price range if he hit free agency to serve as a backup or potential bridge starter to a young quarterback somewhere else. The Raiders probably would be interested in someone like Smith if they plan to draft a quarterback in 2026 anyway, so it wouldn’t be too foolish to just pay the additional $8 million and hold on to the guy they already know.”
In an ideal world, the Raiders would be able to trade Smith and reclaim some kind of asset. While Barnwell thinks anything is possible, he doesn’t believe it’s likely that Las Vegas could find a suitor for the quarterback.
“If the Raiders want to try trading Smith, they’d have to get creative,” Barnwell wrote. “Wilder things have happened, but I can’t imagine any team taking on the full $26.5 million owed to Smith next season. Las Vegas could alternately eat some of the $8 million left for Smith to make his deal more palatable and recoup a late-round pick in the process. But that’s never a fun conversation to have with ownership, especially about a player who was prioritized by this new regime.”