Devin White will always be one of the messiest “great in the moment, complicated in the memory” players in Buccaneers history. He helped deliver a Lombardi, talked like a superstar, played like one early on, and then somehow managed to turn a Pro Bowl resume into a breakup that felt inevitable long before it was official.

Now he’s in Las Vegas doing the funniest thing possible to anyone who swore he was cooked … piling up tackles like it’s 2020 again.

With two games still left in the 2025 season, White has already set a new Raiders franchise record for tackles in a season and sits near the very top of the league in both combined and solo tackles.

That’s not “nice bounce-back story” territory. That’s “wait, what?” territory, especially for a guy who looked like he was sliding out of the league after being cut by Philadelphia and then drifting through another stop.

And yes, Bucs fans are allowed to feel two things at once here.

Because the Tampa Bay version of Devin White was real. Drafted fifth overall out of LSU in 2019, he immediately became a heat-seeking missile in the middle of the defense. He wasn’t just cleaning up tackles, he was blitzing, wrecking protections, and playing with the kind of swagger that made the entire unit feel faster.

Put him next to Lavonte David and it worked. Put him behind that defensive front in 2020 and it became jet fuel for the Super Bowl run.

Then the second act hit. The confidence stayed but the consistency didn’t.

As the rookie deal wound down, the gap between how White saw himself and how the team evaluated him got wider. He asked out. He walked it back. But once you ring that bell, it doesn’t un-ring. The effort questions popped up.

Getting off blocks became a problem. Coverage became a problem. And in today’s NFL, an inside linebacker who can’t consistently hold up in space is living on borrowed time, especially at the price tag he wanted.

So Jason Licht moved on. Clean. Cold. Quick.

What makes this Raiders resurgence so spicy is that it reopens the argument: was Tampa wrong, or was Tampa just done? The honest answer is probably neither. White may never be the complete modern linebacker every analytics person wants, but production like this isn’t an accident either. He found a role, a rhythm, and a home—even on a brutal Raiders team.

For Bucs fans, it’s simple … appreciate the ring, remember the drama, and admit it’s at least a little wild seeing Devin White set records again, just not in pewter.