Buccaneers sign defensive end Pat O’Connor

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are signing defensive end Pat O’Connor off their practice squad and releasing defensive end Darryl Tapp, according to Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times.

Tapp played three games for the Bucs and wasn’t on the field much, and certainly not noticeably. The veteran was supposed to bring some kind of boost to a struggling pass rush, but wasn’t able to do so—which is about what you can expect from a mid-season street free agent in his 30s.

As for O’Connor, he was the Detroit Lion’s seventh-round pick this year and had 8.5 sacks and 14.5 tackles for loss in his final year at Eastern Michigan. He picked up one sack in preseason for the Lions, and has good size at 6’5”, 277…