TAMPA, Fla. -- Tampa Bay Buccaneers run game coordinator/outside linebackers coach Larry Foote clapped his hands excitedly as rookie first-round pick Rueben Bain Jr. exploded from his four-point stance, jarring his hands into a blocking sled up into the air and several feet forward.
"Good violence! Good violence!" Foote exclaimed.
Next Bain came barreling toward Foote in the hoop drill, with his body contorting to a near-parallel position with the ground as he turned the corner, somehow staying on his feet.
"He has a great get-off. And to be that strong and have that get-off -- now you're lethal," Foote said.
He'd already seen the explosiveness, the leverage and how tough it was to block the 6-foot-2, 262-pound edge rusher on film -- his 20.5 sacks and 33.5 tackles for loss in college for Miami were certainly proof of that. But this reaffirmed what the tape had already showed him.
"Back in my Pittsburgh days, I played with a guy named James Harrison like that," said Foote, who watched Harrison become the Defensive Player of the Year in 2008 and whose 80.5 sacks are third all-time in Pittsburgh Steelers history. "It was just -- you couldn't block him. [Bain] has that trait, he has that ability."
Harrison also happened to be one of the hardest-hitting, most intimidating players in the league, and a tone-setter for a vaunted Steelers' defense that won two Super Bowls.
Bain's ability and relentless mentality were part of a conscientious defensive overhaul for coach Todd Bowles and general manager Jason Licht this offseason. Their mission? Get not only bigger and stronger on the defensive side of the ball and in their front seven in particular, but also to get meaner.
"We've never said that we don't want those kind of players," Licht said. "We've stressed 'high character' -- 'football character' -- but that doesn't mean that we don't want some nasty a--holes when they get on the field. We have made it a little bit of an effort to concerted effort to try to find the right blend of high character when it comes to team and being teammates, a 'football character,' but also edgy."
One such player Licht mentioned was Al-Quadin Muhammad, who notched 11 sacks last season for the Detroit Lions and whom they believe can play multiple spots along their defensive front. Muhammad is also eager to prove he can produce without playing opposite of Aidan Hutchinson.
"He plays with that attitude and mindset that you look for -- he's mean, he's nasty, and he's been doing it for a long time," Foote said.
That's on top of returning starter Yaya Diaby, who is coming off a seven-sack season, veteran rotational player Anthony Nelson and David Walker, who suffered a torn ACL at the beginning of training camp last season but whom Foote remains very high on. They also signed 6-foot, 313-pound defensive lineman A'Shawn Robinson in free agency, and he embraces the 'a--hole' moniker, in addition to hoping to help them on first and second down. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, his 316 run stops since 2016 are third most among defensive linemen.
"He's aggressive," defensive tackle Calijah Kancey said. "He's going to bully the guy in front of him."
"He's an alpha within the line of scrimmage," new defensive line coach Marcus West said.
When asked about becoming an "a-- kicker," Robinson said, "It comes from a little kid that used to try to pick on for not having anything, for being so poor. So know what I did every day? Whooped somebody ass. Every day you said something, I'll beat the s--- out of you. So that's where that came from."
At inside linebacker, they signed veteran Alex Anzalone, who spent the last five seasons with the Lions and who statistically is one of the best coverage inside linebackers in the league. His 67.5% completion percentage allowed is second best in the league since 2021 among linebackers with 1,000 or more coverage snaps. His eight pass breakups this past year were also second among all linebackers.
"He has always been intriguing to me because he is long, he is athletic and you talk about thumpers and you talk about coverage guys -- he is kind of a mixture," said inside linebackers coach Mike Caldwell, who has watched Anzalone since his days at Florida. "He is a guy that can cover a tight end, you hear about that all the time but also, when it is time to play down in the box and get down and dirty, he can do that as well. It is just an added option for us to be able to use as a chess piece."
They also selected Missouri inside linebacker Josiah Trotter -- son of longtime Philadelphia Eagles great Jeremiah Trotter -- in the second round. The team believes that right now, he's best suited going downhill and serving as a thumper, but that his coverage skills in college were underrated. The expectation is that he can compete for the starting middle linebacker spot. They also believe that at 21 and with only two years of college football under his belt, he's far from his ceiling.
"Really we're hoping that it's a mindset. A mindset for us to get back to being a physical front, and he's that type of player -- he's a guy that can come downhill, use his hands. And he's the physical presence inside," Caldwell said.
"We understand what he can do it in a run game. The pass game it was really what they asked him to do in college. So now he gets a chance to come up here and develop another skill set. And once he does that, then the blitz and the physicality, the coverage skills -- that'll all come in and then hopefully he'll be the player we want him to be."
Caldwell also noted that because of the height of both Anzalone and Trotter (Anzalone is 6-foot-3, Trotter is 6-2) it's going to be harder for quarterbacks to throw the ball down the seam. Previous starter Lavonte David was listed at 6-1, while SirVocea Dennis is 6-foot.
"Whenever you can shrink the space on a quarterback, it helps you," Caldwell said. "Those guys being as tall and as long as they are -- it's gonna do that."
In addition to having that, Foote said that bigger bodies up front will mean fewer players down in the box. The Bucs ran 205 defensive plays in 2025 with eight or more players in the box -- tied for seventh most in the league.
The Bucs' defense also allowed 1,010 yards with eight or more players in the box in 2025 -- sixth highest in the league. They gave up 3.8 yards per rush with stacked boxes too -- tied for fourth worst. The defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, by comparison, gave up 1.4.
Then against the pass, they surrendered 1,520 yards with eight or more in the box. And there's poor tackling too. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, the Bucs' 6.5 yards per missed tackle surrendered was fifth worst. By comparison -- the year they won the Super Bowl (2020), they had 4.5 yards per missed tackle -- second best in the league, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
"Bigger and faster -- you can collapse the pocket versus the pass," Foote said. "It brings a lot. You always want to go with the bigger fighters. And if you can get that, that's what you're going to choose -- 10 out of 10 [times]."