Before the season, Tampa Bay Buccaneers interior defensive lineman Calijah Kancey talked a big game. Maybe too big for a player as unaccomplished as the 2023 first round pick has been to this point.
Kancey, in all of his offseason fervor, even talked about leading the NFL in sacks after leading the Buccaneers with 7.5 sacks in 2024 — meager numbers if we’re talking the NFL’s elite pass rushers.
We indulged Kancey because he was coming off a decent season and it’s fun when players show that kind of confidence, however unwarranted it might be.
The truth ended up being something pretty awful for the Bucs and for Kancey, who won’t register even a single sack in 2025 and will end up missing 15 games due to a torn pectoral muscle suffered in a Week 2 win over the Houston Texans.
In 3 seasons, Kancey will have played in just 28 out of a 51 possible regular season games and has missed more games due to injury each year.
After 3 seasons, it’s totally fair to call Kancey a bust. Which is why Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds thinks the Buccaneers need to start looking at ways to replace the former No. 19 overall pick.
“By the end of the regular season, Kancey, who has been on injured reserve since tearing his pectoral muscle in Week 2, will have played in 28 games and missed 23,” Reynolds wrote. “The Bucs simply can’t count on him playing an entire season in 2026 because he has yet to show he can do it in any of his first three years in Tampa Bay … the Bucs desperately need another impactful defensive tackle with the capability and athleticism to be an impact starter.”
Devastating Injury News to Start the Season
If we are picking apart what’s gone wrong with the Buccaneers defense this season — and it’s been a lot — the problems start with Kancey getting hurt early in the season.
Without Kancey, defensive tackle Vita Vea, who has found himself the target of constant double teams all season, and a group of middling edge rushers have been totally exposed without an elite interior defensive line to give them one-on-one matchups against offensive tackles.
Not that you really need more than one player to block any of Tampa Bay’s edge rushers, anyway, but you get it.
“Sources: Bucs DT Calijah Kancey will miss the rest of the season with a pectoral injury suffered on Monday night vs. the Texans,” NFL insider Jordan Schultz wrote on September 16. “The former first-round pick is a huge piece of Tampa’s defense.”
“An MRI just now confirmed #Buccaneers DT Calijah Kancey tore his pec last night, source says,” NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo wrote on his official X account. “He will need surgery and his season is over.”
Early Promise Has Never Panned Out
For a 4-year, $14.49 million rookie contract, the Buccaneers gotten nothing of real substance from Kancey to this point. Getting him back for the postseason might be the best possible outcome at this point.
“Bucs standout DT Calijah Kancey, who tore his pec last week and had surgery this week, does have a chance to return to the team this season, sources say,” NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport wrote on his official X account on September 21. “If the team makes the playoffs and advances past the first round, Kancey could be back on the field.”
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