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2013 NFL Mock Draft: Bucs expected to get secondary help

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hold the 13th overall pick in the draft, and most mock drafts project them to fix their secondary.

Streeter Lecka

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers currently hold the 13th overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft. Their disappointing season can be chalked up to a terrible secondary performance, and most mock drafts around the Internet expect them to fix that.

SB Nation's Dan Kadar is projecting the Bucs to take Alabama CB Dee Milliner. Milliner is by far the top corner in this draft, and his stock could surge in a thin class:

Milliner is the best cornerback in the class and comes off a sensational performance in the BCS National Championship Game. He falls this far because he's exclusively played the boundary and doesn't have the smoothest backpedal. Still, he's a talented player and would immediately start for the Buccaneers.

Rob Rang of CBS Sports seems to agree, as he's also mocking Milliner to the Bucs:

Though more than just the cornerbacks are at fault for Tampa ranking dead last in the NFL in passing yards allowed in 2012, there is no better spot to start to correct the problems. One of the trademarks of Greg Schiano's Rutgers' teams was stellar play at cornerback and the 6-1, 198-pound Milliner has the length and physicality to fit perfectly.

There's less consensus among the NFL.com draft experts, however. Charles Davis has the Bucs taking Florida State CB Xavier Rhodes, but the other columnists went in different directions. Gil Brandt is projecting Alabama OT D.J. Fluker, and Daniel Jeremiah has them taking Stanford TE Zach Ertz.

Other than those two, Tampa's needs are pretty set in stone at this moment. They need secondary help, and they're in a good position to fix that issue in this year's draft.

Photographs by cstreet.us, thelastminute, turtlemom nancy , fesek, kthypryn, justinwright, sue_elias, pointnshoot, and scrapstothefuture used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.