The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are searching for answers after a heartbreaking and frustrating loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, which marked their fifth defeat of the 2026 season.

At this point, it’s all about getting the players who give you the best chance to win on the field, and doing it consistently. To be real: Rookie EDGE Rueben Bain Jr. isn’t one of those players, right now.

That leaves the Buccaneers with a big decision regarding Bain Jr.’s role/snap count, because another player on the roster should be on the field more and that’s second-year pass rusher David Walker.

To be fair, Bain Jr. has improved over the last couple of weeks. He had the best game of his young career against the Steelers, posting a pass breakup that led to an A’Shawn Robinson interception and his first career sack.

There’s still a lot of meat left on the bone, though, especially considering the expectations. Most sportsbooks had Bain Jr. as the odds-on favorite to win Defensive Rookie of the Year. He looked like a game wrecker during the offseason and preseason. Outside of the Pittsburgh matchup, that version of Bain Jr. hasn’t shown up and it should open the door to more opportunities for Walker, who is clearly the better player, right now.

So where do the extra snaps for Walker come from?

Outside of Yaya Diaby, Bain Jr. is the only Bucs pass rusher who has played at least 30 snaps in every game he’s appeared in. Anthony Nelson has 12 combined snaps over the last two weeks, and the rest of the rotation has mostly hovered in the 15-20 range.

Walker himself has yet to top 30 snaps in a single game.

Diaby hasn’t taken the step forward many expected, but he’s still the best player in that position group. You don’t want to pull too much from him. That tells me the snaps have to come out of Bain Jr.’s cookie jar.

Bain Jr. was the 15th pick, and of course you want your first-round rookie to develop. Taking a little off his plate could slow the game down for him, though. Tampa Bay could plug him into situational moments that set him up for success instead of sticking with a predetermined plan that isn’t working.

Bowles was asked about it on Monday and didn’t offer a great answer. He pointed to the pass rush rotations the Buccaneers deploy and said playing time depends on who is in which rotation based on the matchup.

That’s simply overthinking it. We saw it with Bucky Irving’s 72-yard run against the Cowboys, which was mostly him making a play on a run that wasn’t blocked well. Your best players are the ones most likely to step up, even when the moment isn’t perfect.

This staff, especially Bowles, is too programmed for wait-and-see mode instead of make-it-happen mode. Giving Walker even six, seven, or eight more snaps a game at Bain Jr.’s expense could make a world of difference.

It’s easy: Walker gets more chances to wreck games, and the rookie gets time to catch his breath. We’ll see if Bowles and Co. understand that.

David Walker is a better player than Rueben Bain Jr. and that should lead to taking snaps away from the rookie

Look, I’m not saying the Buccaneers need to bench Rueben Bain Jr. or cut his snaps in half. They simply need to give Walker more chances and that unfortunately should come at the expense of Bain Jr. – to a responsible extent, of course. 

Walker leads the Bucs with 4.0 sacks, and he’s done it on fewer than 100 defensive snaps through six games, compared to Bain Jr.’s single sack over 141 defensive snaps.

That works out to a sack in fewer than every 25 snaps and it’s exactly the kind of pass rush production you want.

None of this should come as a surprise, either. Walker turned heads during OTAs, minicamp, and the start of training camp in 2025 before he tore his ACL. He backed it all up this offseason, at one point recording a sack in several consecutive practices.

We could all see the breakout coming. It was just a matter of whether he’d carry it over when the lights came on.

And it looks like that’s the case for Walker.

Rueben Bain Jr. may have had his best game against Pittsburgh, but Walker had the best game of his career too, and his was more impactful. He sacked both Steelers starting tackles, and both are former first-round picks. Walker also leads the NFL with roughly a 26% pressure rate.

Walker has outperformed Bain in every game except Week 1, when he received zero defensive snaps for whatever reason.

There’s also the matter of his play against the run. Todd Bowles said earlier in the season that Walker needed to improve against the run, and yet he’s been one of the team’s better run defenders when he’s on the field.

He’s also the Buccaneers’ highest-graded pass rusher, per PFF. Those grades aren’t gospel, but they reflect what we’re seeing. And the Buccaneers’ worst-graded pass rusher through six weeks?

Yep. It’s Rueben Bain Jr.

Tampa Bay has been here before

The fact that Walker still isn’t on the field enough is an indictment of the coaching staff, and it’s a familiar problem. In 2021, Joe Tryon-Shoyinka had three sacks to Jason Pierre-Paul’s 2.5 about six or seven games into the season, yet Pierre-Paul was getting far more playing time than the rookie.

When asked about the split in playing time, current Buccaneers coach Larry Foote made it clear the bigger paychecks were driving the decision.

“You play the guys who are getting paid,” is basically what he said.

Tryon-Shoyinka finished that year with more sacks than Pierre-Paul, who never played for the Buccaneers again outside a very minimal role in 2025. Paying a guy more doesn’t mean he should be on the field more than someone who is playing better.

That’s coaching malpractice and we’ll just have to wait and see whether or not Bowles and Co. make the right adjustments moving forward.