This past offseason saw the end of the road for Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, four seasons after he came to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with sky-high expectations. He never lived up to the hype of being a first-round pick, and now the pressure is on another former top draft pick in the same way we saw with Tryon-Shoyinka last year.
Logan Hall wasn't a first-round pick on paper, but that's essentially how he was viewed when the Bucs took him with the No. 33 overall pick back in 2022. Since then he's hardly lived up to the billing, but he still has some time to turn things around before he ends up finding work elsewhere like JTS.
Time is running out, though.
Former top draft pick Logan Hall is in a make-or-break season with Buccaneers
Last year, the Bucs moved Hall around on the defensive line to try to get him in a better spot to succeed, which ultimately didn't help much. Originally drafted as a defensive end, Hall moved to a more generic 'defensive line' role before moving to the other end of the line last year, which marginally improved his chances of sticking around.
He's entering his fourth season in the league, and it's the first time he's playing the same position in back-to-back seasons, though. That's less an endorsement of him being a utility player and more about his inability to make the right impact when needed.
Hall managed to improve his sack total in each of his first three seasons, with last year being the best by far. He finished with 5.5 sacks and almost 30 total tackles, which is a big step in the right direction. However, there's competition brewing behind him that could speed up his timeline one way or another.
Tampa Bay drafted David Walker with a premium mid-round pick, and he's already looking like a potential sleeper in the same way Calijah Kancey went largely underrated a few years ago. There's a big gap between when those two picks were made, but Walker has the tools to be a wrecking ball off the end of the line, which is what the Bucs have been hoping Hall would be all of these years.
If Walker can develop faster than Hall has been able to, that could be a problem for his longevity in Tampa.
Hall also has to watch out for rookie Elijah Roberts, who may be a more direct threat to his role. Walker is listed as an outside linebacker but will be a hybrid edge rusher, while Roberts is purely a defensive end playing on Hall's side of the line.
In an ideal world, Hall finally takes the big leap forward the Bucs have wanted him to take and Roberts offers talented depth behind him in a rotation. If that doesn't happen, it certainly feels as though a team known to develop underrated late-round talent will be able to coach up Roberts in a way that gets him further along than Hall is.
Nobody wants Hall to flame out like Tryon-Shoyinka did, but it's hard not to feel like the writing is on the wall. He still has another season ahead of him to prove he deserves to stick around, but it's looking like a make-or-break season for a once-promising draft pick.
