Bucs played coy with Calijah Kancey before NFL draft and scored big

TAMPA — Calijah Kancey was projected to be a first-round pick, one of the country’s best interior pass rushers during his career at Pittsburgh.

But prior to the NFL draft last year, nobody wanted to fly in the first-team All-American for a visit. Certainly not the Bucs, who didn’t want to draw attention to their interest. As preposterous as it sounds, Kancey began to doubt whether he would hear his name called on the first day of the draft.

“I didn’t have a feeling at all,” Kancey said Monday when Bucs players reported for the first day of voluntary offseason workouts. “I mean, I met with the Bucs at the combine, but other than that I hadn’t talked to them.

“I honestly didn’t know. I asked my agent, ‘Hey man, why doesn’t nobody want to have me in for a (top-)30 visit? Like, what’s going on?’ I was really stressed out. It was hard. I was like, ‘Am I even going in the first round?’”

Every NFL team is permitted up to 30 visits with prospects at their facility. They can use those invitations on any prospect, but they can be misleading. Sometimes it’s to gather further medical examinations of a player with their own doctors and training staff.

They may meet with front-office members and certainly coaches.

“We all want to make them feel comfortable,” general manager Jason Licht said. “We want them to get loose and see their true colors, their true personality. Everybody has different ways. Sometimes (VP of player engagement) Duke (Preston) will give them some kind of riddle to solve or will play some kind of game with them — something just to see how competitive they are..”

The Bucs apparently did their homework on Kancey, having met with him at the scouting combine. They also loved what they saw on tape and took him with the 19th overall pick.

Unfortunately, the first half of Kancey’s rookie season was derailed by a calf injury sustained early in training camp. He started the first regular-season game at Minnesota but aggravated the injury, forcing him to miss the next month.

Kancey quickly made up for lost time. He played his first full game in Week 6, recording six quarterback pressures and his first career sack in a loss to the Lions. He was named Defensive Rookie of the Month for November and finished the season with four sacks and 10 tackles for loss.

“It helped me realize not to take this for granted,” Kancey said of his injury. “With me missing training camp and part of the first couple of games, I had that extra juice because my body wasn’t worn down so early.”

It didn’t hurt that Kancey was able to play next to Pro Bowl defensive tackle Vita Vea. The combination of Kancey’s speed and Vea’s power presented problems for opponents.

“I learned a lot from Vita, just being in the room with him, being on the field with him,” Kancey said. “My first day I actually took a rep with him, he told me everything to do before we ever got out of the huddle. I was like, ‘Damn, it’s that easy?’ That just lets you know what type of guy he is. He’s on top of everything. He knows the formation, he knows what to expect, he knows the person we’re going against. ... It’s really a plus for me.”

Kancey was even better in the postseason, recording four tackles, ½-sack, a tackle for loss and contributing to a safety in a wild-card win over the Eagles. He then had a sack in the division-round loss to the Lions.

This offseason, Kancey said, he is focused on shedding blockers more easily and playing “violent.”

“Being able to get a full year of experience in the NFL and seeing where I was in college and where I’m at now, I had to go through it myself,” Kancey said. “Leaving from college, I always knew I was ‘that guy,’ and in the NFL there’s a lot of those guys, so it’s just really finding a way every day to get better.’’

That was the message head coach Todd Bowles delivered to his team Monday, cornerback Zyon McCollum said.

“It’s just consistency and showing up every day and doing something, (and) not being good, but being great,” McCollum said. “What he means by that is just if we’re doing everything that we’re going to need to do in training camp right now, by the time we get to training camp we’re going to be that much further ahead.

“It not just watching film just to watch film, it’s watching film and still treating it like you’re in-season. It wasn’t that long ago that we were in this building in the season fighting for a playoff spot, fighting to get to the Super Bowl, so we can’t lose that fire, that intensity. We can stack these years instead of starting over every year.”

Kancey is anxious to get started on his second NFL season. He and outside linebacker Yaya Diaby, who had 7½ sacks as a rookie, formed a productive tandem.

The Bucs would do well to duplicate their success with Kancey and Diaby in the draft this season. But as Kancey knows, it’s hard to predict which player will land in Tampa Bay.

“At No. 26, I don’t know who we get, but that process is very stressful,” Kancey said. “You have to embrace it.”

Bucs bring back Gholston

The Bucs signed defensive lineman William Gholston to a one-year deal, bringing him back for a 12th season. Gholston, 32, was a fourth-round pick out of Michigan State in 2013.

The Bucs also signed former University of Cincinnati lineman Lorenz Metz, a native of Germany, as part of the International Pathway Program. He will not count against the 90-man roster limit.

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