A year and seven games into his Tampa Bay Buccaneers tenure it is a fair question to ask— Do the Buccaneers have a Riley Dixon problem? Dixon is currently playing out the final year of his two-year, six million dollar contract and despite being in a contract year the Bucs’ punter has done anything but improve or play to standard. Dixon was, once upon on a time, a promising and exciting punting prospect heralded as a savior for Tampa Bay’s punting woes following a 2024 campaign that cycled punters
like a merry-go-round.
Dixon has not been the stabilizing force that Jason Licht and co. anticipated he could be. In his first season with the Bucs, he averaged 44.7 yards per punt, the second-lowest of his career to that point. The performance was lacking, however, Dixon was able to escape large quantities of blame because the entire Tampa Bay special teams unit was largely poor (with exception of the group’s shining star, Chase McLaughlin). Inside of the Buccaneers’ sweeping changing to their coaching staff this offseason, the Bucs addressed that the unit had been bad. The fix was bringing in long-time special teams coach Danny Smith.
Smith’s 30+ years of coaching experience was supposed to be difference for Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers, as a team, have been mostly bad in 2026, but their special teams has not. Danny Smith’s group has been largely improved. Not only has Chase McLaughlin remained the best individual player on Tampa Bay’s roster (he’s possibly gotten even better this season, 16-16 on the year), but the team’s kick coverage, punt coverage, special teams tackling, and return game have all found more consistency in 2026 than any recent years prior— Dating back to the Bruce Arians era of football. This past week, in Tampa’s blowout win, special teams played a huge part. Not only was Danny Smith’s group responsible for a turnover, recovering a muffed punt, but they also scored points when Tykee Smith’s blocked extra point was taken back to the end zone by Zyon McCollum for the score. The one area Tampa’s special teams has still not shown a consistent level of high-level play in is punting.
Riley Dixon’s 44.7 yards per punt from a season ago, has actually dropped to 43.4— The worst of his career. Dixon is currently graded out as the league’s 29th-best punter (59.5 on pff). His stats by individual category are all bottom 10 in the league and it is not based in a small sample size as Dixon has tallied the six most punts in the NFL this season (29). All signs would point to Dixon being unlikely to be brought back for a third season with the team following the 2026, but should a move come sooner than that?
The 2026 Bucs are in a very weird position. The team is not good. They have not been good. They actually haven’t been a good team for roughly a full calendar year at this point. Still, they have a very legitimate opportunity to make the playoffs — The ineptitude of NFC South reigns supreme— The team, not only is in the hunt record-wise, but they just ran their division leader off their home field with a level of dominance that has to put the rest of South on notice. Excluding last season when they fell victim to the rare three-way tiebreaker; Tampa Bay has won the NFC South every year since 2021 and while the team’s been poor for about 11 months now, Sunday should serve as a reminder that the Buccaneers can easily win the NFC South if they could only ever consistently play to their own potential— Easier said than done these days in Tampa Bay. Whether it should be or not, if the team’s focus is on winning games down the stretch and pushing to have the best season they can have, then punting is a weak point that should be addressed.
Yesterday, the New England Patriots released Bryce Baringer. Baringer is a punter, one who presents far more potential than Dixon. After a preseason injury, Baringer began the season on IR. The team moved on to Mitch Wishnowski who has played well enough in his stead to remain in place. That leaves Baringer, a punter whose average has never dipped below 46.9 yards in any one season, available. Baringer, who obviously has yet to compile stats for 2026, was the NFL’s 11-ranked punter according to PFF in 2025 with a 77.6. A year ago, things weren’t much different for Dixon than they are right now, his 59.5 was actually a good bit lower— 56.4.
Punting is often an overlooked portion of the game, but field position, blocked punts, or failure to kick above replacement level can win or lose a team games. Dixon has been an ineffective player since joining the Buccaneers and if the team’s focus is on putting the best product on the field every week, discussions about his future should be prominent at One Buc Place.
