• Bucky Irving exceeded all expectations: Irving went from a fourth-round pick and backup to one of the best running backs in the league.
• How much can he handle?: His playing time steadily increased, as his biggest role occurred in Week 18 and the wild-card round. His playing time could continue to rise, remain what it was to end the season or revert to where it was earlier in the season.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs will impact each player’s fantasy football outlook.

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Saturday, May 10

Player performance

Irving was a fourth-round pick by the Buccaneers and won the backup job behind Rachaad White before Week 1. He ran 25 times for 154 yards over the first three weeks while playing 31-36% of Tampa Bay’s offensive snaps, leading to a bump in snaps. He played between 41-54% of the snaps from Weeks 4-15, and there were three exceptions where his snaps dipped below that and one week where White was injured, so Irving took a larger role.

By Week 10, he was an essential part of the Buccaneers’ offense, running at least 12 times each game, outside of one where he suffered an injury. Over the last five games, including the playoffs, he ran at least 15 times and caught at least two passes each week. In Week 18 and the wild-card round of the playoffs, the Buccaneers gave him a significant increase in snaps to 72% and 69%, respectively.

Irving averaged 0.29 avoided tackles per attempt and 0.096 avoided tackles per route run, which were both the best among running backs last season. He also led the league in yards after contact per attempt (4.03) and the percentage of his carries that gained at least 30 yards (3.4%). He was incredible when the situations were less than ideal but struggled on zone runs.

Projected role

Irving is expected to be the starter after taking a much larger role in the offense in the last two games of the season. Irving’s snap rate in those games was better than usual for players like Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, Joe Mixon, De’Von Achane and James Cook.

The Buccaneers retained Rachaad White and Sean Tucker to be the backup and third-string running backs. In those last two games, Irving played nearly every snap on early downs, at the goal line and in short-yardage situations, while White played almost all of the third-down and two-minute drill snaps. 

Irving could be a better third-down back than White, but Tampa Bay will likely limit Irving’s snaps in some situations, and it might be on third downs, where running backs don’t touch the ball as much relative to other situations. However, there is at least a chance we could see Irving’s snaps exceed what we saw last season, particularly in highly competitive or more critical games.

Impact of teammates

The Buccaneers lost Liam Coen, so they promoted passing game coordinator Josh Grizzard. Early in the offseason, Grizzard mentioned wanting to be physical, win in the trenches and get the running backs more involved in the passing game. He praised all three running backs but mentioned Irving first. This will be Grizzard’s first NFL offense. A lot of what he said was coach speak. We should just know that Grizzard adds some uncertainty to what will happen, which could be positive or negative for Irving.

The Buccaneers retained their starting five offensive linemen from last season, who all played at least 950 offensive snaps, including the playoffs. At left tackle, Tristan Wirfs had one of the best pass-blocking seasons by a left tackle in recent memory but also had his worst season as a run blocker. The rest of the young veterans on the line played notably better in 2024 than in previous seasons.

Bottom line

Irving was the fourth-highest graded running back last season and, by the end of the year, he started playing a snap count more akin to one of the top running backs in the league. A new offensive coordinator could return to more of a committee, but he could also make Irving even more of a focal point of the offense.

Footnotes

• Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
• “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
• Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
• As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
• Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
• Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
• The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
• All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
• Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.