Three players who participated in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ rookie minicamp on tryout contracts will be sticking around past the weekend.
On Monday, the Buccaneers signed the following players to their 90-man offseason roster: East Central (OK) wide receiver David Moore, Charlotte outside linebacker Markees Watts and Delaware safety Kedrick Whitehead. Watts and Whitehead were undrafted rookies while Moore has prior experience in the NFL.
The Buccaneers also waived first-year tackle Dylan Cook and rookie outside linebacker Nelson Mbanasor.
Moore was a seventh-round draft pick by Seattle in 2017 and he has played 50 regular-season games with 14 starts for the Seahawks, Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers. Most of his playing time and all of his starts came with the Seahawks from 2018-20, during which he caught 78 passes for 1,163 yards and 13 touchdowns. Moore went to training camp with the Chicago Bears last summer but ended up on the team’s injured reserve list before being released in September.
Watts played five seasons at Charlotte and finished as the 49ers’ all-time leader in sacks, with 21.5. He earned honorable mention all-Conference USA honors after three of those seasons and had 31 tackles for loss in 54 total games. Last season, he started all 12 games and racked up 41 tackles, 4.0 sacks, 9.5 tackles for loss, one interception, one forced fumble, two fumble recoveries and a blocked kick.
Whitehead earned first-team all-conference honors in each of his last four years at Delaware and was a team captain in his final three seasons. As a senior he was named a third-team All-American by the Associated Press after contributing 73 tackles, 1.0 sack, 3.5 tackles for loss, five passes defensed, a forced fumble and a rumble recovery. Whitehead played in 55 total games for the Blue Hens and had 295 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, 2.0 sacks, five interceptions and 25 passes defensed.
Cook joined the Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent last year out of Montana and spent most of his rookie season on Tampa Bay’s practice squad. Mbanasor was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Texas State last week.