The night before Sunday’s game, Zyon McCollum watched old footage of the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense. “I wanted so badly to try to bring that energy into this game,” the cornerback said. For three quarters, it worked. Tampa Bay led the Pittsburgh Steelers 16-3 going into the fourth quarter. Then it gave up 23 points the rest of the way and lost 26-19 in overtime. The Buccaneers are 1-5.
McCollum talked about the collapse, the advice that shaped his career and the one part of his game he wants to change in a long sit-down for the team’s “Players’ Table” show with team reporter Casey Phillips, recorded after the game.
“He’s adjusting on the snap”
McCollum gave the credit to the quarterback. “Aaron Rodgers, he did an incredible job of adjusting to what we were giving to him, you know, defensively,” he said. “We were going after him and he was getting the ball out a lot better, a lot quicker in the second half.” In the fourth quarter alone, he was in on the tackle after six Rodgers completions, five of them to DK Metcalf.
He said the defense was too slow to react. In high school, he said, you fix things the next week, and in college you fix them at halftime. “And then the NFL, it’s got to be like next play,” he said. “I think we could have done a better job of adjusting as players in real time, like into the next snap, understanding the way that the game is changing.” He said the veterans need to help the rookies see how quickly a game can turn: “It’ll definitely be a growing moment for us, but we don’t want too many more growing moments.”
He also pointed to mistakes in communication. “Things started slipping away a little bit, a couple of communication errors here and there, which really caused them to make some of those positive plays,” McCollum said. “Most of our mistakes come from errors like that. It doesn’t come from physically getting beat, and you would much rather just physically get beat.”
Pittsburgh’s only points in the first half came on Chris Boswell’s 52-yard field goal on the last play before halftime. In the fourth quarter, Darnell Washington caught a 5-yard touchdown pass, and Boswell kicked field goals of 39, 58 and 20 yards. The last of those came after Jamel Dean intercepted Jalon Daniels and returned the ball 40 yards to the Tampa Bay 3. Chase McLaughlin made a 53-yard field goal with 8 seconds left to force overtime, and Germie Bernard caught the winning 6-yard touchdown pass in the extra period.
Jamel Dean’s 2 a.m. advice
The player who made that interception once helped McCollum get started. Dean played his first seven seasons in Tampa Bay before moving to Pittsburgh this year. When Phillips asked how Todd Bowles had shaped his career, McCollum went back to his rookie year in 2022. “I remember when Jamel Dean played here, he came up to me when I was a rookie and gave me some advice and was like, just go up there, stairs and meet with Coach Bowles,” McCollum said. “If he says to be here at 2 a.m., just be here at 2 a.m. It doesn’t matter how early, just make sure you do that. That is what helped me the most.”
He said those early meetings were the first time he understood the whole defense. “My game changed after that,” he said. He also said Bowles does not hand out praise easily: “When he does say something positive, you hear and it matters so much more and you listen to it so much more.” It makes him want to “go home and not just, you know, watch a movie but watch film,” he said.
After the game, he said, Bowles told the players that “the margin of error is so thin now.” McCollum put it this way: “It’s pretty much playoff football for us.”
“If I’m so good”
McCollum, 27, is in his fifth season since Tampa Bay drafted him in the fifth round (No. 157) out of Sam Houston in 2022. He has seven passes defensed this season, tied for sixth in the league, but no interceptions. He has three interceptions in his career. Phillips read him his numbers from the games against Minnesota, Green Bay and Dallas: 104 coverage snaps, nine targets and two catches allowed for 38 yards, with no touchdowns. McCollum said he was proudest of the zero touchdowns. Early in his career, he said, there were times when “things have kind of lulled me to sleep, and then that’s when I’ve given up one.”
Now he wants more turnovers, and he went back to that 2002 team. “Like I mentioned earlier about the 2002 defense where Jon Gruden, you know, he challenged the defense. He said, if you guys are so good, why don’t you start scoring touchdowns?” McCollum said. “I kind of heard that message as like, if I’m so good, why don’t I start turning some of these pass deflections into interceptions?”
He said he will put the same challenge to the rest of the secondary. “We’ve been playing pretty good, not giving up too much,” he said. “But, you know, we’re one and five.” Then he added: “What do you have to lose?”
Daniels, Parrish and a new position coach
McCollum spoke up for Daniels, the undrafted rookie from Kansas who went 22 of 43 for 164 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions on Sunday. “He has the best energy. He’s always smiling. He’s always happy. He’s definitely a light in that locker room,” McCollum said. “Nobody’s expecting him to go out there and be perfect. I know I’m not.”
He described second-year cornerback Jacob Parrish, who played nickel as a rookie and now also plays outside, as “a silent assassin in a way.” “He plays big,” McCollum said. He also credited Rashad Johnson, who was promoted to cornerbacks coach this year after four seasons on the Tampa Bay staff. McCollum said the group has worked harder this year than ever, and that Johnson keeps the corners confident by treating mistakes as lessons.
A Bulls dad, a twin and a change of degree
McCollum’s father, Cory Carr, was a Texas Tech star who was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in the second round in 1998 and traded to the Chicago Bulls. He played the lockout-shortened 1999 season in Chicago and then had a long career in Israel. McCollum said his father now coaches in Tel Aviv. He also said he teases his father about staying at Texas Tech for his senior season instead of entering the draft a year early, which cost him a year with Michael Jordan.
McCollum and his twin brother, Tristin, did not hit their growth spurt until their junior year of high school. “Our mom was like, you know, everybody, all the men in our family are late bloomers,” he said. “You guys need to work extra, extra hard right now. Be the quickest, be the fastest, because when you guys get taller, you’re gonna thank yourself for all the work that you put in.”
He said coaches had always pitted the twins against each other, until a recruiting camp changed that. A college coach told them he would offer scholarships if they ran a 4.5-second 40-yard dash. The brothers marked off 40 yards in the street at their apartment complex and agreed to stop competing with each other and train together. “That was the moment that we came together as one,” McCollum said. Both went to Sam Houston, and Tristin also made it to the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles.
At Sam Houston, both started out studying biomedical science. After their sophomore year, McCollum said, he decided to commit fully to football. “I know that the only way that I can do it is if I completely put all my eggs in one basket and just focus on it,” he said. He switched to kinesiology and said he plans to coach when his playing days are over.
Carolina next
The Buccaneers play the Panthers in Charlotte on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET. Carolina leads the NFC South at 3-2, and Tampa Bay is two and a half games back. Panthers coach Dave Canales was Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator in 2023, and McCollum said that still matters a little. “They run a lot more RPOs now, and so they are evolving and they are changing, but at the same time, we generally know what they like,” he said. “But also at the same time, they generally know what we do and what we like as well.” He expects a close game: “Most of those games are one score games.”
He said Bryce Young has improved every year and plays best when he is enjoying himself. “It’s gonna be on us to try and make him frown a lot more,” McCollum said.
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