Breaking Down Offensive Coordinator Interviews | Bucs Insider Live

terms of since our last show. It isn't necessarily the newest of information at this point, but uh, the Bucks did still be acknowledged, Yes, still need to talk about it now. That the Bucks did end up having several co ching changes, we figured we'd go through that now and then what we know in terms of the attempts to replace some of those people that are going on now. So first of all, just take us kind of through

the changes that were made. Yeah, and I think shameless plug here, Um, you're you and Brianna and Jeff and I combined our did a little mashup of our podcast, so check that out on Buccaneers. Yes, it was very fun, so Salty Dogs Tampa to mash up it was great wherever you get your podcast, um, and we talked about this a little bit. It's it's one of the hard parts, one of the unfortunate parts of the job, right and uh, you don't these are people you work with and you

don't like to see the loser jobs. But it happened, so let's acknowledge that, right. And so the Buccaneers parted ways with six coaches, um, including offensive corner and Byron Leftwich. Also Chris Bonnal, Kevin Garver, Jeff Castle, Lorie Locust, and Tom McNair. And also three others decided to retire, and that was Clik Christensen, Rick Christophel and Bob Sanders. So almost exclusively on the offensive side. You had Lori Locust and Bob Sanders who are leaving on the defensive side,

and then Chris Boniol the kicking specialist. So now, of course there's just so many interesting We talked about this on Salty Dogs the Dominoes. Now, of where you don't really know exactly We've got a lot of free agents. You don't really know exactly what this team is going to look like from that standpoint, salary cap and then it's do you hire people based on the players, do players come back based on who you hire, the order

of all of that. So what do we know at this point about where the Bucks are in terms of some of that hiring and the way they're going about the Job number one is the offensive coordinator because like you said, most of these positions were offensive, and so you want to get the guy at the top in first or woman man or woman at the top in first, and then you know, fill those assistant positions after that.

And they have started to line up some candidates, and like most teams, when they finished an interview in the Buccaneers announced that they've done so. So the one we know for sure is Clint Kubiak of the Denver Broncos, the passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Denver Broncos and former offensive coordinator for the Vikings. He interviewed yesterday. So there'll probably be some more these are going to be coming out. We won't we won't really announce them

until they're done. But I think that's the thing that that's job number one, right, which is going to be so interesting and so um looking at this, what do you feel like are the things that they're going to be the steps that we can be paying attention to now of how this offseason goes in terms of like we talked about the free agents, there's salary cap things,

there's coaches to hire. How is this different maybe than We've had a lot of continuity these last few years, both in terms of coaching and players, so we have not had to walk through this in a little while.

Remind everyone kind of the timeline of when these things might be happening, how it affects this offseason, and what we might be looking Well, I think the coaching hires will have been relatively quick quickly because they kind of have to write you really need to get your plans in place, and and also there are a lot of teams. There's about nine teams if you count the ones that fired their head coaches that are looking for a new

offensive coordinators. So if you're if there's any person out there that you're really hot after, you may have competition for that person, and so you kind of have to

move pretty quickly. Yeah, that's been so interesting to see because to your point, Yeah, it's like it might make it harder because there are so many teams you could be in competition with but it also shows how many teams parted ways with their offensive coordinators, which means maybe there's more available than in traditional years that have had experience in that area, is compared to someone who hasn't that's moving up into that role, which would be good

news for people like Byron Levetwig And you know, as I meant to say when we were talking about that, UM coach Bowls decided that these moves needed to be made for the future, for the you know, for the betterment of the team going forward in three But let's not diminish the and he said so in his quote, the work and the effort and the successes they helped in the past four years. I mean, look at Byron left which is an example. You know, he was on the Super Bowl staff. He was a coordinator for an

offense that did really well for several years. So good for them for that. But yes, in terms of a lot of candidates being out there, that's true. Uh, and so there could be some competition for him. So I think that's first, But I think probably the other big storyline, I mean, quarterback is obviously the big story, but the thing that underlies all of this is the buck salary cap situation, and that's something that actually is going to

have to be attended to before free agency. So that's actually the next thing, because the Buccaneers as constituted now are about fifty million dollars over the cap with the contracts they have, for which you can't do I mean, you can't just go oil you. You have to solve it. So there will be, without a doubt, some roster room

has made. Some players might even get released, that's possible, but there will be maybe contract extensions or contracts we reworked, and all that's going to happen in the next month and a half, yeah, which is going to be interesting. And so looking at to the free agent list, it is so long, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing in terms of the

contract or the salary cap situation. That you have a lot of guys that you can figure out what to do with now is compared to already being locked in with them. But um, it is going to be quite

a task for Jason Lte and his whole staff. What do you feel like are going to be some of the priorities and how do all these different again dominoes affect each other of looking at who all is a free agent on this team, Well, there's about there's about two dozen of them, which actually isn't really all that uncommon.

The Bucks have been in that situation for about three or four years in a row now, and part of the reason for that is they have signed a lot of one year contracts and you know guys, a couple of guys like Leonard four, Nette Shack, Barrett, Chris Godwin. They got long term deals in the last couple of years, but before that we're one year to year. Tom Brady almost has gone year to year. The last one was two years. So um, there have been like you signed,

got like a Chem Hicks. He was an important free agent edition for the Buccaneers. But they don't signed to a one year deal. So you get a lot of those deals from which means every year you have a couple dozen understrictive free agents to deal with and you don't bring them all back. But there are some names on there. Obviously we keep saying that Tom Brady is

an unrestricted free agent, um, but there's others. Lavante David, you know who's been this team captain for nine straight years, and it really had a very nice season in the eleventh year. Um, and most of the secondary, to be honest with you, Yeah, that's basically that is the way to look at it is almost the entire s Davis is under contract and Antrom Winfield's under contract, and that's about it. That's crazy. We talked about that on our Saltry Dogs podcast of where I had looked up what

a huge percentage of the passes defense and interceptions. I think you said the eight of ten interceptions, and then I can't remember the exact number for the passes defensed. It was something like seventy or something. Yeah, something some crazy amount. So, um, yeah, I think that it's been We've taken for granted the fact that we had such a young core back there for so long, which meant they were young, they were inexpensive, and they had only played under this system. There was just a lot to

that that was very impressive. It was the function of a couple of good drafts in a rown, a lot of second and third draft picks and fourth even if

you countro On Whitehead and left last year. They just drafted a lot of defensive backs in the second through fourth round range, and most of them worked out and that just became your not given for four years, but those years are up now, yes, Which does that tell something about where this team feels like they can get, you know, because we know the Bucks are not going

to be picking super high in any round. Um, does it change what they feel like they can get or maybe the positions they feel like they can do a good job of in those mid rounds based on the history of what this team has done. That's a good point. That's a good point that maybe they're not as worried about it because they've seen, Hey, we've gotten offensive linemen that weren't first round picks. That and Alm Petting all those people. You've gotten all these dvs in later rounds.

So maybe that tells them that it's okay that as much as we all love for a higher draft pick early on, that that's the downside of making the playoffs, is that it's less about your record more about the fact that you made the playoffs. But maybe they feel like those mid round picks can be UM a good one. And then we also had some news about Chris Godwin, which I thought was very exciting. So you want to tell everybody about the award he has been voted to.

He was the Buck's choice for the ed Block Courage Award for this year. They do that. Each team does that every year, and then they have I think it's in Baltimore, they have a ceremony, and um, there's one chosen overall. Um, it's it's generally for players who have overcome something, and obviously Chris Goddwen did an amazing job of overcoming is a very significant knee injury from last December, to the point that I think Coach Bowles might have

said this on your show. Um, surprisingly he's not a at least a finalist for comeback players. That's what I

was gonna say. I love that he got the ed Block Courage Award, but I really feel like he deserved at least a shot, and I almost feel like, this is my opinion on this, I almost feel like he did too good a job of overcoming it, where people, for whatever they forgot because it happened so late last season that it almost felt like it was after the season, like his whole comeback journey, because he was back Week one.

It's like it almost didn't happen in people's minds because it all happened in that off season period when maybe you're not paying as much attention, and you saw Chris Godwin for most of last year and then he came out and was playing really well. He missed a little bit early in the year, but almost it's like he did so well at it that people were like, we come back from from what Yeah, yeah, good to start

last year, is good to start this year. I mean, but sae Kwon Berkley, if Sakewon Barkley is a candidate, Chris's injury was more significant than his and the season was just as good. That was very frustrating to me, But yeah, at least if he's not going to get the Comeback Player, I was happy that he got the Courage Award, And yeah, I think the awards are maybe April first and second to announce all of those in Baltimore,

So yeah, I was. I was very happy for him. Um, but yeah, I just thought that was so interesting that I did feel like almost it's like he did too well. He finished third in the league and catches per game, which is crazy. He missed two games in half of another and still got over a hundred catches. It's incredible. What you gotta do, ye and it's finely this does it really matter? Yeah, I'm sure to Chris and of all people who is not awards seeking, it's that guy

that you know all of our dang humbles. It's more weird than than upsetting. It's like, why would you know Smith came back from what not starting? Hey, that's rough. He had a great year. He debly win the award. He did have a great year. And I saw that Jineau was talking about how he was upset that Carroll was not one of the Coach Coach of the Year ones and that he was like, wait a minute, candidates, there are a lot of good candidates, which is going

to be interesting. All right, Well that is going to do it for us on this edition of Bucks and Senter Live presented by Verizon. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be coming back to you periodically throughout the off season to make sure you have those questions ready for us. Put them underneath our live video on the Facebook page. Whenever you watch our show, We'll see you next time.