Breaking Down the Bucs New Additions | Bucs Insider

that has happened, a lot to go over. We have cut down the roster to fifty three, we have built a practice squad, we have signed some new interesting additions. So I don't even know where to start. There's so many different options. But while we give you guys a chance to submit your questions on the Facebook page, we're

gonna take some of those later on. As we start talking about some of these developments over the last week, why don't we just go first of all with the cutdowns and who made the fifty three and some of your initial reactions to that. Well, there in a ton of surprises. I mean since last Tuesday, I guess you could say there were some surprising developments. We have another quarterback in the house that people would recognize, and Josh Rosen on the practice squad. We have enough. He was

the tenth overall pick in two thousand eighteen. We have another running back that people would recognize in that room, and Leonard four Nette, he was the fourth overall pick in two thousand seventeen. We have a new kicker. In fact, we have two new kickers if you count the practice squad, neither of whom were here when we last spoke. I guess actually Ryan suck Up was just arriving last time

we talked. He got the job over Matt gay Uh, and then we brought in Greg Joseph, who actually, coincidentally, last year, Ryan suck Up, after he'd never missed a game before and over four years or five previous years in Tennessee, was kicking at about which is very very good, even at a stretch where he made an NFL record fifty six straight kicks from inside the fifty, which is

pretty amazing field goals. But last year he started out on injury reserve of the knee issue they tried to bring back because they wasn't going well with their other kickers in Tennessee, and um, he obviously wasn't ready to go yet only made one of six, and so they had to put him back on I R and they

brought in Greg Joseph, who did well for them. He amazingly over five games, including the postseason, he had eighteen extra point attempts in one field goal, which is really weird for a five game stretch, but they were The Tennessee office was just going ballistic at that time with Derrick Henry and they're scoring touchdowns and not needing field goals. But he made all of them. So it's obviously a

different sort of year. You've got to be prepared. So having kickers on your practice squad is not something you're used to, but uh, it's a thing I think most teams were doing this year, Uh, putting another kicker on the practice squad in case something would have happened late in the week, Especially since COVID's a possibility, you want to have another kicker ready to go. So it's an unusual year. But as for the cuts themselves, that weren't a ton of surprises. Okay, And then we had a

question and we also released a depth chart. We didn't even bring that up. Of all the things that have happened and related to that, East I how good does it mean Winfield is that he's already been listed as a starter at this Yeah, that's that's an interesting thing. And um, it wasn't clear during during the entire camp

that he would be starting. Mike Edwards was getting a lot of action as the first next to Jordan Whitehead on the first team, and uh, you kind of got the feeling that they loved Winfield but maybe it would be eased in, but I guess not. And uh, coach yesterday, Coach Arean said about it is the issue is he's just making plays every day. He's always around the football, And I think what it is is they just they just can't wait to get this kid on the field.

They didn't want to delay it. I still think you're gonna see more than two safeties in action in most weeks. There'll be some packages that used three of them at once, potentially, especially because Winfield has cross trained and Kim played in the slot corner as well, which is pretty amazing. And obviously, um, we had some technical difficulties and got off to a

little bit of a slow start here today. And what I was doing in that time when we were waiting was I was researching how often our first and second picks in the draft were in the starting lineup on opening day, which is if if the depth chart is fouled, you never know. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe they started a different package or something. But if the depth chart is fouled, now first round pick Tristan Wars Will start a right tackle and Antoine Winfield Jr. Will Start at safety.

And how often do you think that that happens, Casey, Is that a common thing or not? I mean, I'm gonna guess probably not super common. Yeah, I probably. I probably wouldn't have brought it up it was common if it was like this happens every year, I tell you what said anything, So this pesky show started and I didn't get to finish from back through nineteen seventy six, But from now through back to one, it's only happened

four other times. Um. The most the one that most Bucks fans of current vintage would remember is in two thousand fifteen, used the first round pick on Jameis Winston and the second on Diamond Smith. And in fact, the next pick was Alan mar Pett and the next pick was Kwon Alexander. That's the only time in Team Mystery unless the before in nineteen eighty that all of your first four guys were all on the starting lineup on

opening day, which was a pretty amazing draft. And I know you can look at this in two different ways. If if you've got a lot of rookie starting, that could mean your roster was talent deficient and they're starting by default. But I don't think anybody thinks that about this roster, and that certainly wasn't the case with that

two thousand fifteen group. Those are all ended up being very productive players, and Donovan and Ali are still with us, and uh, you know, Kwan got the big deal, and of course James had five years as a starter, so uh here so um. It doesn't happen very often. So it's pretty interesting, and it's especially unusual given that this was the year what everybody thought rookies would have a hard time make getting into the lineup early because they

didn't have an offseason, they didn't have preseason games. It's a tougher landscape than ever before for rookies. That I think that just tells you how impressive Tristan and Antoine were over the last month or so. That's a great point. Um, Matt asked, has Leonard Fournette been on the field practicing yet? Yeah, he was yesterday. It was his first practice, so you know,

he had to go through the COVID thing. That's why it wasn't official announce until Sunday and his first the first practice after that was yesterday, um, which is five days before the start of the regular season. So I can understand if people don't think you'll have a big role in the offense on Sunday in New Orleans, and that's certainly possible. But Bruce Arians did say he would

have a solid role. I think it was a little hint to how they might use him when he started when Bruce Arians started talking about what makes him good as a third down back because he's good in past protection, he's got good hands, he knows what he's doing. He's a big, big, fast guy. So if I were a betting man, and honestly, I don't think anybody knows three or four weeks from now how the carries are gonna be distributed, because you've got to see how it works out.

But if I were a bettman, I would say that this Sunday, Week one, Leonard four Nett will probably get a little bit of time from Shady on third downs and a little bit of time from Ronald Jones on first and second downs, and just see how it goes. Yeah, that's gonna be interesting. And I hoped sort of for Leonard fourd AT's say, he gets at least some action, because he talked about how excited he was to play

his hometown team at this time. But it's so hard for us to think about this is like, oh, I've never played the Saints before. When we played them all million time, it feels like, yeah, he's never played them in his career and he's from there, so I thought that was pretty cool for him. But he finally gets you know, he gets sent to a new team and very first opponent is his hometown team. That's kind of a cool story. But Jacksonville, Jacksonville never played in New

Orleans in his three years. Huh, yeah, that's what That's what he said in the Prescott. The Buccaneers have actually played a game on l s u S campus, So we've played more games where Leonard Fournette played college than for Neette has played in New Orleans. I don't think that means anything. Yeah, but it's a fun fact, it was after Hurricane Katrina had damaged the Super dumb That's interesting, Randi Barber had three interceptions and we won the game. Well,

then we should play them more often. Okay, let's see. Devin asked, do you see Josh Rosen taking over the QB three spot. I did think about that. I did wonder that. Um the question is are you bringing him in to gradually do that or do you want to keep four quarterbacks? And there's certainly reason to believe you just want to keep four quarterbacks because you, um, because

of the COVID thing. If if something happens and and one guy has to go on the list, and then other guys were in proximity and all of a sudden, you're you're at without a quarterback, it kind of makes sense. And with the expanded practice squad, I think you can afford to do that. Um, So I understand that point. I think that's a logical thread to pull, and it could happen, but I think it's a little early to

know for sure. I do think if you're Josh Rosen, who's already got his salary guaranteed from from Miami, so chasing the highest salary probably wasn't as big as priority as you can see, came to the practice squad here where he probably could have got an act of roster spot somewhere in the NFL. Uh. But chance to work with Brusirians Byron Leftwich, Clyde Christensen, Tom Brady probably hard to pay pass up. And also you might think as a young quarterback, he's had a tough he's had a

tough road. You know, he gets drafted, starts a little bit as a rookie on a just horrendously bad Arizona team, and then new coaches come in, they have the first pick in the draft. They decided to go to Kyler Murray. Then he goes to Miami and they're not a very good team at all. So hasn't had a real great

opportunity yet. And maybe he's thinking a couple of years down the road if Tom Brady finally hangs him up, which who knows that will happen now, you know, right, so I can understand him thinking long term in that regard. You know, I will say, I don't know fans all fans know this, but um, in addition to a sixteen man practice squad this year, which is huge, uh, you. Also, each team also gets to say on Tuesday four players that they're gonna protect, which means you can't be signed away.

Usually when you're on a practice squad, at any time another team can sign you away to their active roster and and uh, this year that's still true. But each Tuesday you get to designate up to four players that can't be that are protected and can't be signed away until after the next game. And uh, we did our four yesterday and Josh Rosen is one of them, which you know, doesn't mean that we love Josh Rosen more

than the next guy in the practice squad. It just means probably just means that that's a position where you want to be protected. We also protected our second kicker, Greg Joseph. So I think it's gonna be a weekly thing where where are you most worried that if something were to happen, you'd be too thin and you'd need somebody right away. So if you had a problem with your quarterback room on a Friday and and you didn't have a fourth quarterback or somebody plucked him away, you'd

be in a little bit of a pickle. So it's interesting to see how that list will be used this this year. First, the first week we protected Rosen wide receiver Cyril Grayson, uh cornerback Mazzi Wilkins, and the kicker Greg Joseph Okay, and we had Oscar asked, how does the offensive line look? Are they gonna be ready to protect Tom Brady this weekend? It's just gonna be interesting to see overall. You may we talk about the idea of Tristan Worth starting and usually the only change up

front there. So I feel like a lot of this question is are the existing guys gonna be do they have reason to be better from last year? And then how much better could Tristan worse make them? All? You can really go on because it's really hard to tell how good the line is when they're playing each other in training camp and not all of it is full tackling, full contact. One thing you can go on is what

they say about each other. And of course teammates are going to be complimentary about each other, but we have heard um alling our pet for instance, say Donovan Smith is even better that he looks great. And in the issue with Donovan is his coach was saying. And one of these zoom called interviews was um consistency because they love Donovan Smith. They think he's a really good tackle,

but sometimes there's a player two that aren't perfect. And the coach was saying, you can't have sixty good plays and five bad ones. You need sixty consistent plays. And apparently he looks really good. UM. Several guys have had very good things to say about Tristan Worse. I think Ryan Jensen and Ellie mark Pett were already very good last year. Alice Kappa impressed in terms of starting for the first time at right guard. He should probably be better.

There have been some good things said about him, but honestly, we're not going to know the answer to that question for sure until we've had a couple of games. I'm pretty optimistic about it though, Yeah, I would agree with that. But we'll close with this one. This is an interesting question. Something else that sort of was an interesting find from the depth chart that was released, J asked, will Gronk line up with o J or Cam on a more consistent basis. I think that you're gonna see a lot

of Gronk and o J together. UM coach arians calls twelve personnel, which is two tight ends his base offense, which is interesting because tight ends in his offenses, he hasn't had a lot of hugely productive ones in terms of catches and so on, but he hasn't had a room like this before either. Uh, you still end up in eleven personnel, which is three wide more often, but I think this year that that gap is gonna come down on a little bit. You'll see a little more

um twelve personnel. And I think you're gonna see a lot of Gronkin O G together, and there's gonna be other packages. Uh, you know, Gronk and Cam, Cam and o J. And don't even forget about Antonio Claire because the interesting of the thing about Claire is if you look at his his stat line, he's been here about three years and he's got a surprisingly large number of starts because lots of times we started a package which has him and O J. And if it's for the

purpose of running the ball. So I think you have a call, I'm not that is true. Well in Karman, it's our other reporter Kermen. I'll call her back. Why isn't she watching this here? Tell her to tell her to go right now. This is great, Well it worked at all. We were ending anyway, so you can go call Karmen back. Yes, yes, perfect a. Well, thanks to all of you guys for joining us on this edition

of Buccaneers Inside our Line. Thanks for those great questions, and we are so excited that the next time we do one of these shows there will have been a Buccaneers game that's going to be so exciting. We'll be able to talk about that, hopefully talk about a Buckaneers win over the Saints. I'll see you guys then, Pif, Paffer, pify ma sefer m again