Jason Licht: “We’ve Hit On Another One” With Graham Barton

Just as much as the Bucs have been building the defensive trenches by selecting Logan Hall and Calijah Kancey with their top draft picks in the past two years, general manager Jason Licht and the rest of the front office have placed a high priority on drafting and developing the next era of the offensive line.

While it started by selecting left tackle Tristan Wirfs in 2020, Tampa Bay has followed that up by taking Luke Goedeke and Cody Mauch in the second round in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

That was before they selected Graham Barton with the 26th overall pick on Thursday night. For Licht, the team wanted to set the tone of the draft class by taking Barton, and it’s evident the team is very high on him as both a player and a person.

Bucs GM Jason Licht: Graham Barton Is “The Epitome Of What We Look For”

In selecting Graham Barton, the Bucs have made it clear that they are not only invested in building out the offensive line but also protecting quarterback Baker Mayfield, the team’s new $100 million man.

With the team hoping to build off the success of last year, it’s going to mean an improvement from everyone, but there is an added emphasis on shoring up an interior offensive line that was considered the weak link to the group. Barton will be a critical part of revitalizing things up front, giving Mayfield the time to throw and opening up lanes for running back Rachaad White to go through.

Bucs general manager Jason Licht is high on his ability to do just that from that jump.

“He’s the epitome of what we look for in this culture that we’re building here, that Todd [Bowles] wants and we want here,” Licht said opening Barton’s first in-person press conference on Friday afternoon. “To lead our draft class – not only lead our draft class – but to lead our team. We’re all depending on that O-Line room, so the addition of him to that O-Line room is going to help us out tremendously.”

With Barton now in the fold and considered to be the team’s center after Day 1 of the 2024 NFL Draft, it is likely that he will take over for Robert Hainsey as the starter there. After starting five games at center for the Blue Devils back in 2020, he ended up settling in as the team’s left tackle for the final three years of his collegiate career.

It’s been a while since he has manned the middle, but one thing that piqued the interest of the team is his versatility, which is one of a handful of things that stands out on his scouting report. He is ready for wherever the team has him lining up.

“I think part of this whole process has been my positional flexibility,” Barton said after being selected on Thursday. “I think center [or] guard is probably where I’m going to be originally, and then kind of see where I best fit and what they need the most and what works best for me. I’ve been working on it all spring – I’ve been snapping for the last couple of months and I feel pretty good, I feel confident.

Bucs OL Graham Barton – Photo courtesy of Duke

“I’m ready to get in. I obviously still have a lot of areas to improve in and I always will, but continuing to chase those improvements and continuing to mature as a football player and continuing to grow my game – those are all things I’m looking forward to doing in Tampa Bay. I just think I can play anywhere and I’m looking forward to figuring out with them where I best fit and where I can best help the team.”

Licht is equally confident in his ability to be a difference-maker.

“We have a lot of confidence in Graham,” Licht added. “He’s just – the skillset and then the person I think is what we were looking for so I think that we’ve hit on another one with him. Our scouts were on him… very early in the process, we had a long time to study and dissect him and there were very few holes that we could poke in him.”

Bucs Have Been Building Out The Offensive Line By Identifying Traits, Character

When looking at the process of the Bucs drafting Graham Barton, a lot of weight was put on the player, but the person is just as important when it comes to his fit within the locker room and desire to reach his ceiling. Jason Licht relied on the input and intel of the rest of the front office when deciding to bring Barton in, but he admitted that they did not question his high character. In fact, he is reminded of other Bucs’ offensive linemen when discussing him.

Bucs GM Jason Licht and head coach Todd Bowles – Photo courtesy of the Buccaneers

“We talked to him at the [NFL Scouting] Combine,” Licht said of how much he and the team spoke to Barton. “Unfortunately, I was out of that meeting, I was tending to another meeting I think with Mike Evans’ agent [Deryk Gilmore]. It was probably a good idea to do that one. And then a few other zooms that Graham’s had with our coaches was really the extent of it.

“Some of these players like Graham, the sources that we have, the scouts that we have that get the information to us, there [were] very few questions that we had about him as a person because we know what kind of guy he is.”

Throughout his tenure as general manager, Licht has had great success drafting and developing quality offensive linemen. Between Donovan Smith, Ali Marpet, Alex Cappa, Tristan Wirfs, Robert Hainsey, Luke Goedeke, and Cody Mauch, Tampa Bay has done exceptionally well in finding guys throughout the draft who can be molded into starting-caliber players.

It speaks to the team being able to do so with only one of them (Wirfs) being a first-round pick. With another top pick invested in Barton, they are counting on him being able to continue that lineage and make the investment worth it.

“In order to draft them, our guys do a great job. Jason [Licht], [assistant general manager John] Spy[tek], [and director of player personnel Mike] Biehl, and all the rest of them do a great job of identifying what kind of guys we need and how to get them in here,” head coach Todd Bowles said. “And they’re not necessarily first-rounders all the time, [they’re] guys that we can at least groom that fit the traits that give us the chance to kind of build it from within. I think that’s important for us.”

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