Welcome into Bucks Insider, presented by Verizon. Casey Phillips here with senior writer and editor Scott Smith, and we are getting into our off season versions of these shows. But man, we have plenty to talk about. Just because the season's over did not mean we were hurting for content here. Yeah, on this edition of Insider, I had some developments, some developments, that is a way of putting it. We will start with a very sad one for us. Happy for him,
coach Canalis leaving to go to the Panthers. Incredible opportunity for him, which is wonderful, But I know all of us here are very sad to see him go. Great coach, even better guy to work around and be around, in a great family, and just very excited for them. But all of us here very sad.
Yeah, it's bittersweet for us obviously because I think he said but it's twofold.
No.
I think he did a great job and heading remained in that post as our offensive coordinator. I think it would have just got better and better. Very talented guy, obviously, but also a guy that grew to like very very much in just one season. So it's sorry to see him go. But when you are find of a person, you want to see them live their dreams. You know,
I note was his dream. He said he'd prepared for it, and obviously prepared well because the Panthers interviewed a lot of people, and I don't think two months ago Dave's name was being mentioned in the same level as like Ben McDonald or somebody like that, and so for him to be the one that went in and got the job suggests that he really interviewed very well, which is as knowing him, we're not say.
Anybody's watched any of his Prescofference says, we can understand a little bit of what it probably was like.
So good for him. It's hard to say we wish him the best since it's the Panthers beat the Saints. Can you do that for us? Beat the Saints?
There we go, that's what we can ask for. And then not only is he leaving, but typically the way this goes is as either coordinators get hired or head coaches get hired, they tend to, you know, they start working on their staff and it tends to be a lot of people they have worked with in the past, and that's how that works. And so it looks like a few other Buck staff members are leaving to go join coach Canalisis, which.
Worked out for all of them because some of these guys there were on expiring contracts, so they could have stayed here but had new deals, but there was nothing blocking them from following, and I think the Buccaneers wished them well. Harold Goodwin following him, Joe Gilbert, those two have been officially announced by the Panthers. It's only reported so far that brad Izac will be Dave's OC, but given how close we know those two are, that seems
very very believable. So the Buccaneers have some vacancies on their staff that they need to fill out.
Yeah, especially the Harold Goodwin and Joe Gilbert ones. They were the big, a huge part of the running game. That It's not Skip Pete who was the running back coach, but it was Harold Goodwin was your run game coordinator? Joe Gilbert, where's your offensive line coach? And we saw how much progress the run game had been making this year.
And so I think that's going to be a really interesting thing to track this offseason of who replaces them and how they're able to try to keep that momentum that had been built.
It's an interesting dynamic though, because and I'm not saying in any way that there was any problems in the relationship between Todd Bowles and those coaches, but he didn't choose those coaches. Those were Bruce Aaron coaches. He inherited most of this coaching staff. So it to be interesting to see what sort of connections out there, because Todd's been in the game for a long time, he had some connections who's out there who he would pick to put in those positions.
And so of course now the attention for the box turns to replacing first coach Canalis, obviously, because then now we'll determine a lot of these other positions as well. So what do we know about who the team has talked to and who some of the candidates are that are out there.
Well, I didn't wait very long because coach Canals was hired by the Panthers last Thursday, and then on Friday, the Bucks did the first interview for OC. It had to be a virtual one because it was with Antoine randelll who was here briefly started his coaching career here and he's the Detroit lines wide receivers coach, and last Friday they were still in it. You know, they're preparing for the NFC Championship Games, so that one had to
be virtual. And then today, I mean this week, to get things started, they've done in person interviews at the advent Held Training Center with Alex van Pelt, who was most recently the Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator, Gerrod Johnson, who is the Houston quarterbacks coach, which means he worked with C. J. Stroud, so he did a good job. That one's off the books now though, because he got a promotion and a
raise to stay with the Texans. Brian Johnson, formerly the Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator, and Thad Lewis the first in house candidate. That's the quarterbacks coach, who I know everybody over at one Buck is very fond of. I think he's done a really nice job and obviously he worked very well with Baker Mayfield. Now there have been some
other reported connections. I think we're going to keep seeing several more interviews before this is all said and done, but those are the ones the team has confirmed so far.
Yeah, we remember Coach Bowls interviewed a lot of people before choosing Canalis, so it does not seem surprising that he would do the same thing.
Well, it makes sense to cast a wide net.
Yes, absolutely, and then you brought up Mayfield. We have some great news when it comes to both Baker Mayfield and Tristan Wurf's So tell us what happened this week.
They were both named to the Pro Bowl roster. We knew they were high alternate, so this was a possibility. Worse specifically replaces Trent Williams because he's in the Super Bowl, and Baker specifically replaces Dak Prescott, who I think is playing maybe not playing due to injury, And by playing is a bit of an exaggeration because Tristan won't even play I imagine in a flag football game, and Baker will play. I guess Mike Emans is not going to
play due to injury. I don't think it's anything serious, but he's actually he's a Pro bowler. He still counsel as a Pro bowler, but he's not going. So Tristan is that's his third Pro Bowl and it's pretty cool that he won two Pro Bowl earned two Pro Bowls as a right tackle. Made the switch this this year to left tackle and is still in the Pro Bowl.
And that's three Pro Bowls in four seasons, and honestly, as a rookie he probably was deserving, but he ties Mike alstat that's the most Pro Bowl invitations in the first four seasons of a buccaneer player's career. That's pretty cool, huh. And then even the ones that too, is a pretty exclusive and cool list.
That is really great. Maybe I feel like a future article for you could be how many players make Pro Bowls at different positions.
It's just hard to look up. I'm sure I know he's not the first, because I knew off the top of my head Orlando Brown had done it. But I've even talked to some of the other reporters about that very topic. Yeah, it's a really difficult thing to rehearse. It's some I mean research. Some things, your research you just have to figure out how and get the right parameters and it goes quickly. Some things you have to do by blunt force, just going year years. It's not worth it to me, to be honest.
Yeah, forget that.
I started to get Yeah, nobody, nobody, no articles.
There, and then Baker Mayfield not only got the honor of getting to play in the Pro Bowl. But he got another honor as well. But I think everyone here thinks he's very deserving.
Most Improved Player by Pro Football Writers Association or of America. I'm not sure which one it is. And then he also is one of the five candidates for a Comeback Player of the Year, which we'll find out in the NFL Honors show. But yeah, he obviously deserves that honor. I didn't even know that honor existed, to be honest with you, that aword, but.
Yeah, we had to come back a lot.
But I haven't heard the most of most Improved. But it's kind of neat. And if you look at his numbers from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three, you can see why. And you know, twenty twenty two he had been traded by the Browns to the Panthers because the Browns traded for Deshaun Watson and and so rid of Baker, and then it wasn't a great situation in Carolina.
Matt Ruhle he got fired I don't know, five or six games in the season, and then they had rotating quarterbacks in Carolina, and eventually the Panthers who were having a terrible season, waived him in December, he got picked up by the Rams, had one really great game right after he got there, and one Player of the Week.
But overall, when you put all the numbers together for that season and then compare him to this season, I mean, I think the most important thing is the very top mark that top line up there the starting record two and eight to nine and eight. But every number he improved in and if you look at the difference of the passer rating, that's quite impressive, incredible. It was a great season. And you know, I don't know how to
feel about most improved because he probably would think. I mean, if you'l could twenty twenty he has very similar numbers to twenty twenty three when he was with the Browns and took them to the playoffs. So it's almost more like rebound right to the level of play that he knew he could get to.
So I know that one of the things this time of year is always we're wondering who's going to be part of the team this next year when his free agency start. One of the probably least paid attention to parts of that is the practice squad. But this is the time of year that we do find out a lot about who's coming back, and we've seen that can be an incredibly important part of the team in terms of not just getting your starters ready, but guys that can get called up and end up playing some big roles,
especially if there's injury or things going on. So what do we know about who will be coming back in terms of the futures contract?
Yeah, so the and you're right. A lot of times a guy like say Jose Ramiers, the sixth round guy Edge that we drafted, he ended up on the practice squad this year and spent the whole year on the practice squad, but he can definitely, you know, rise next year to the roster potentially depending on who's here and who's not and how much he improves. And fee look
at Mike Green, same thing. We resigned him after a year on the practice squad and then he made the active roster this past year, even started a couple games. So reserve future contracts are contracts that you sign like right now in January, but they take effect in twenty twenty four. It just means you don't have to wait and you can get those guys back right away, but
they don't affect the salary cap right now. They've applied to twenty twenty four and the Bucks re signed fourteen of the sixteen guys that were on their practice squad at the end of the season, and there may be there may he might eventually resign the other two as well, but for now it's guys like Hoser Ramirez, David Wells. Remember he started the year on the active roster as one of the tight ends. Keenan Isaac, a cornerback that
they played a little bit. Evan Decker is the long staffer that they signed last year out of college out of Duke is back, so maybe he'll be pressing Zach Trinner potentially for the job. And then one we did sign a handful of guys from other teams or just off the roster. One interesting one is a young man named lual You Gouick. I practiced that luell you Gouick. He's he's from Canada. His family is originally from Sudan.
He was born in Canada and he's played a little bit in the CFL, but this is the first time he signed with anybody in the NFL. He's a defensive tackle, so it'll just be interesting to see. Yeah, what's because he it's not often that a guy his first time signed by an NFL team is in January.
Yeah, that's really interesting. That'll be fun to watch. And then I know we're going to close with this For the next several weeks. We're gonna pick a different position each week to look at of the draft in terms of is this something that we feel like the team could be targeting as we turn our attention to the draft and the offseason. So tell us the first position you wanted to address and see if this is something the Bucks metage.
Right, So the Bucks are picking twenty six in the first round, so when I talk about potentially addressing this in draft, I'm talking high maybe this pick, maybe second round, something like that. And we haven't made a real deep dive into the draft yet. I haven't done a single mock draft. So this is more just like each week we're gonna look at a position and see what's the state of that with the Bucks, maybe draft something at
that spot high. The Bucks did get to forty eight sacks this season, which is the third most in the season in team history. Yet I would still say, do we have that star edg dresser that can get you twelve sacks, fourteen sacks in the season, and I think you know, yeah, yah Yabi the rookie who had a eight rookie season led the team in sacks, which is awesome, especially out of the third round. So that's a nice
piece right there. But seven point five sacks as your sack leader, you'd probably like to see that be a little bit higher, right And we last year was six point five by Vida Veas. So the Buccaneers got a lot of sacks, but it's almost by committee. They had nine different players have at least two and a half sacks, and that includes some safeties and some linebackers, and so
it all added up to a good sack number. And the Buccaneers were tied for the most players on a team this year they had at least two and a half sacks, and that's good and it also speaks to Todd Bowles's play calling prowess. But I still think it's possible that the Buccaneers would be interested if maybe a guy like Chop Robinson from Penn State or something like that makes it to twenty sixth.
Yeah, that's going to be interesting to see all right, that's going to do it for us on this edition of Bucks Insider presented by Verizon. Will be back all off season with you, keeping you updated with these different coaching hires as well as looking ahead to the Draft. We'll see you next time, ye stay fair.