Bucs Insider Live, July 10

a couple of weeks since our last show. Our office kind of shuts down for a little bit of a July for our holiday, which is very nice, but uh, you know, normally this time of year there's not just a whole lot of news or a whole lot going on, but there has been a little bit more news since we lasted our show because the last time we were here, we didn't actually know what was going to happen with

the Jamis Winston suspension. Now we do have some certainty on how many games he's going to be missing, and we I know that I'm sure we're gonna get a million questions about that. So at this point, what do we know and how you feel like you see that

affecting those first three games. Last time we're on there was sort of there were reports out there that it was going to be a three game suspension, which proved to be true, but we said at the time that we really couldn't go very far with it because it was not official. But since then the league made its official ruling it will be a three game suspension to start the season. Jameis Winston can still come to training

camp and playing all the preseason games. But then unless the first three games and uh, you know, Jamis made his statement afterwards, the team made their statement afterwards. So from that standpoint, we have clarity at least for the you know, for the short term. So that's what we know. Three games and so of course now you start discussing what what are the consequences of that who will be

at quarterback in those three games? How well will that person do, what will be like when Jamis comes back, that sort of thing, So of course we can discuss those things. I'm sure fans want to do that. The obvious, uh, the answer for those first three games is Ryan Fitzpatrick. But we can't really count out Ryan Griffin because they he's been around for about three seasons now, and they went into two Ryan's went into last year's training camp

in pretty much an equal battle. It became a move point because Ryan Griffin hurt his shoulder, but I would think that Bucks still failed just as good about him, so he'll get every chance to compete. But the obviously answer is Ryan Fitzpatrick, right, actually and yeah, and just to make sure everyone knows that they're new to the show, we are taking questions from all of you. The questions

will be on Facebook. So depending on where all you're watching this, head over to the Facebook page and send in some of those on the actual live video. We're yeah, we're already getting some things come in here as well. So you talked about Ryan Fitzpatrick and Ryan Griffin that um that it was a pretty interesting competition last year. What do you remember about Essentially, we we got to

see Ryan Fitzpatrick in regular season games last year. What do you remember about what we saw from him in those games and then what we saw from Ryan Griffin before that injury. Well, Ryan Griffin was looking good before he got injured, and it was going to be and it was gonna be a difficult situation. I think a good problem to have because the reason you bring in Ryan Fitzpatrick is you know what he can do. Uh, He's a very known comanity with over a hundred starts.

He's he's had some really big numbers in some places. He's obviously a very smart guy. The team believed he could pick things up quickly, he could step in and keep the offense operating at the level was what jamis and that's what happened in those three games, and he started, we won two of them, and he was pretty good in those games are pretty productive. In addition, he also had a really nice second half in Arizona, making the Bucks pretty good comeback that didn't quite pan out after

Jamis heard his shoulder the first time. So, uh, you know, it's easy too. It would be the easiest answer would be to say, well, we've seen that he can do it, so he's the obvious guy. But Ryan Griffin was looking

pretty good beforehand. If if I have to be the one to make that decision, like if they had to decide at the end of training camp last year which Ryan to keep, if Ryan Griffin had done continue to do well throughout the preseason, I think that would have been tough and also would have been tough to decide, well, are we're gonna keep two or we're gonna keep three.

And by the time they had to make that decision, it was mid season because Ryan Griffin had been put on injury reserve and then we'd used one of our options to take him off, and we still had Jamis, but he was banged up and we had um Ryan Griffin starting, so it was an easy decision just to activate Ryan fitzpat Ryan Griffin and role with all three

of them. You know, I know because he said it once early last year that if he had, if everything worked out the way he wanted, Dirk Utter would prefer to just keep two quarterbacks on the fifty three man roster, which a lot of teams do. Now that you don't have that third inactive game day option anymore. So, uh, you know that's probably kind of cleared up in this case to start the season, because with Jamis unavailable for the first three would seem very likely you would keep

Ryan Fitzpatrick and Ryan Griffin for those three games. Uh. The only other option right now is the unrector Ricky Austin Allen Um, who off the top of my head, would seem like a good bet to make the practice squad but not necessarily active roster. And uh, and so you keep those two and then the question becomes again when Jamis comes back, you go down to two, which means something has to go, or do you keep three for the rest of the year. Okay, that'll be interesting

to see for sure. Um, we had a question from Michael. He said, do you think this makes it more likely that the Bucks are going to go very run heavy to start the season without Janus? Now? I don't think so, And I do think the Buckners would like to run the ball more, which is going to be involved running the ball more effectively than they did last year or the last two years. I think the ideal is you would look at two thousand and fifteen, which was Dirk

Cutter's first year. He was the offensive coordinator, but he so he was here calling plays the Bucks. Doug Martin had a really good year and the Bucks running game was very good that that year. Jamis was still young, he was rookie, and so he probably they probably wanted to give him as much support in the running game

as possible. But I think what you saw was a pretty balanced attack, and and that's what coaches will say a lot of times, this is the hardest offense to defend is a balanced one because you don't know what's coming. So I don't think it would I would use the term run heavy because it's not like you really need to protect Ryan Fitzpatrick. I think um, But I do think just in general that will want to run the ball more and that's gonna involve doing it more effectively,

which comes down to two things. How how big of a factor is Ronald Jones and I think they think it's gonna be a big factor. And does the reshuffled offensive line performed better than they did last year? Amazing segue. You didn't even know that. That's where we were heading here. But Gerald wants to know how good does the offensive

line look so far? Well, that's an unanswerable question at the moment, as we said, because the one thing you really can't judge in offseason workouts is how good the offensive and defensive lines are because everyone can't hit each other. I mean, you can't see a lot of these guys who brought in like Ryan Jensen and the rookie Alex Kappa. A big part of their scouting report and it still has to be proven on the field for us is how aggressive and you know, borderline nasty, that good nasty

that people used to describe offensive lineman. And so that can't come out yet. Um so we'll see in training camp, but on paper I like it. I think there's some question marks, you know, the health of DeMar Dotson and who's gonna start it right guard. The team seems to be kind of high on Kleb Benenock. I think he's probably the favorite there and that's a good thing, but I think I still think there's a lot to prove there. But from center over to left tackle. I like it.

And partially that's because I tend to believe our coaches who are a lot higher on Donovan Smith than a lot of the outside sources, and they see more of him in practice and know him a lot better than everybody else. For sure. Zach wants to know, is Justin Evans a starting safety this year? Well he was last year? So yeah, I think so. And that's a different way of getting the same question we get every week. It

just he was gonna start. He seems like the surest bet of all the safeties to be starting, because he was the guy that from about week three or four on last year was the guy playing every snap, starting every game, playing every snap, So he seemed like the one safety of the Bucks support set on, Yeah, we need this guy on the field. Chris County, you know, he was out there a lot too and played well, but also had to split some time with t J. Ward and then Keith Danny didn't really get a lot

of playtime because he was a little banged up. But roll back to two OUs and sixteen and he had a really nice, like five games stretch as a starter. So always a good option there. But yeah, I think just then is a pretty sure bet. Andre wanted to know. Have the Bucks ever made a pick in the supplemental Draft? Yes, but not for a long long time. In seven, we chose Dan Silio, a defensive tackle out of the University of Miami, and uh, it didn't really go very well.

I think he played maybe like six games for sort of ten games something like that. I think he was only here for one year. Um, and he later became a member of the media around here, had radio shows and so on. But um, yeah, that that was I think that's the only time we've ever done that. And

that was what thirty something years ago. It's not very common and uh, you know, you lose the draft pick that you use the next year, So there hasn't even been anybody picked in the last I think three supplemental drafts, but there was. Did it happen? It was supposed to happen. That's how little publicize this thing is right, Yeah, it's not. It's not very highly publicized, which is interesting. I mean,

what do you do you feel like? I just feel like it's interesting that the Bucks have found so many players from unlikely places in some ways of either unlikely schools or I mean even Anthony all Claire coming from Canada, that it's interesting that the supplemental Draft isn't. Well, it's just that there's often not a lot of players that are U that you deem worthy of putting a draft

pick on. You know, to be in the supplemental Draft, you're you had to have been in a situation where you you didn't declare, weren't eligible for the regular draft, but something changed after that, like something at their school situation, maybe something happened and they lost their last year of

eligibility or something. And so there's only three or four guys that fall into that category every year, and usually the guys that, even if you like him a little bit, you figure, well, we'll see if nobody gets from drafted, then they can sign with somebody, so you don't necessarily have to to use a draft pick on one of those guys. I think there was one cornerback in this one who was considered a guy that might get drafted be the first guy draft in the last few years.

I know the Bucks didn't do it. I can't recall if that happened and he got drafted, but um, I think that's just that's the reason the supple Mill draft really isn't all that fruitful most of them. Michael wants to know who's the favorite to win kick return punt return duties. Boy, I like that question a lot, and I'm hoping that it's asked again a little later because

it's hard to call. I guess right now, you just go with the incomments I know from talking to our special team's coach, Nate Caps, are that they like what Adam Humphreys does on punts and what Jack Quiz does on kickoffs. I don't think either of those guys has produced a ton of dynamic plays, but they're smart guys. They do the right thing. I know. Um Nate Cats are raves about Jack Wis Rogers and how he just he's really apparently, and so does so the offensive coaches.

This is apparently like a really smart guy and really football smart as well. And he he always does he knows what he's doing. He does the right things. And so that's that's a baseline to start with at any position, you don't want to mess up place on returns, right, that's you want to start with, Basel. This guy's gonna handle a ball well and make the right decisions and hopefully at least get you back to or choose not to run it out when you shouldn't run it out.

That said, I think in an ideal world, the Bucks would prefer to find some young player who has is a much more dynamic opportunity option back there. So I would go with the incumbents is the favorite, but I wouldn't be shocked at all if a guy like and I don't know, you know, maybe m J. Stewart or um Jordan Whitehead who did some running back and he hasn't had a lot of returns, but he's played offense.

Somebody like that, given you or um the running back from Duke Seawan Wilson, undrafted rookie, he could be a guy that could actually earn a spintaling roster specifically for that. So and then we shouldn't forget that Bernard readis back and he was our aunt return and they liked him. He just lost his roster spot when there was a lot of injuries and we had to make some moves. Yeah, that's true. Uh, Christopher, Well, I'll combine a couple of

questions here. Christopher wants to know how the defense is looking and will we get more sacks? Brandon was asking of the new guys via free agency or draft, who is impressing you on the defensive side? Okay, Um, yeah, I think we'll get more sacks because it would be hard to get fewer. We were last in the league with twenty two, and I mean that's that's a bad number. Um. And we just I acknowledge the fact that every move

that you make isn't gonna work, especially in freegency. And we can take just this one simple example like Michael Johnson that was supposed to be a guy who's really going to change our past rush and didn't really work out. So yes, those moves cannot work out. But there we made so many of them that even if most of them work out, it should be a big improvement. Vinny Curry,

Jason Pierre, Paul, Mitch un Rhine, Vita Vella. Uh, Pierre Paul, I'm missing one of them, bow Allen, that's a lot of new pieces, all of them, except for vita Vea, relatively proven players and some of them proven pass rushers, and especially JPP and Curry. Uh some of those are gonna work out. Hopefully all of them work out. But even if they don't, we have to have more sacks this year just from that being able to run in

a rotation like that. And you know, even if vita Vea doesn't proved to be a big sack guy in his first year, he's gonna make a difference just by clogging up blockers and giving guys one on one opportunities. And the same thing with bo Allen. So yeah, we'll

get more sex who's been most impressive so far? It again, going back to what he said before, it's hard to say that about any of the lineman, although watching three and fifty pound vita Vea go through those drills and looking like he's a three hundred pound guy the way he moves, he's impressive. But let's see how that translates. So I'd probably go with um Carlton Davis. Uh. Gary said, how does our linebacker situation look this year? Well, it

looks really obvious. In two of the starting spots, both Lavonta and Quander healthy and Pro Bowl caliber players, they should obviously be starting in those spots and producing big plays. Uh I think if he recovers in time from his ankle injury got in a car accident, kindle Beck with his is the very obvious third starter, and even the reserves are pretty well known commodities and Darius Taylor, cam Lynch, Davante Bond, So it looks like a pretty solid group

right there. Um. The one big unknown is Jack Cichy, the draft pick, and I think he would have gone higher than the sixth round if he hadn't been hadn't hurt his knee and missed all of his season at Wisconsin. So he's healthy and running around. Uh So if he forces the way into the picture, that'd be interesting. But otherwise I would say linebacker is one of the most set positions on our on our roster. Interesting. I think we're gonna get this question a lot, probably over the

next few weeks and through training camp. Tyrone wants to know how much we'll see Chris Godwin on the outside and and Jackson in the slot to take advantage of his speed there. It'll be interesting, you know, when that topic has come up. De Shaun and the coaches have been a little vague about it, but I wouldn't call it outright denials that that might happen, right, And I

can understand that. You know, if if they were developing a bunch of plays for DeShawn Jackson in the slot, does it make a lot of sense to really give out all those details. But we'll see it on the practice field during training camps, so we'll get a little better feel for it then. But I think you're gonna see you're gonna see some of that because they've got to figure out a way to get Chris gott Went on the field, all right, and that seems like one

good way to do it. Yeah, that's very true. All right, that's going to do it for us here on this edition of Buccaneers Inside a Live presented by Miller Lte. Thanks, as always for your questions, and we'll see you right back here every week.