Good morning everybody. It is Wednesday morning, which means it is time for Buccaneers Insider Live, presented by Miller light Casey Phillips. Here was senior writer and editor Scott Smith. And as you can tell, I get a fancy new background today and this I'm in the control room at the stadium, which is very cool. We have something going on at the stadium later, so I figured it'd be easier to just go ahead and head on over here and a little bit of a sneak peek on maybe
what Insider is gonna look like moving forward. I mean, I know this is what people live for, right is news about the program that brings them the news. But yes, so soon Scott and I will be doing our show from in here. It's gonna be awesome for now. Of course, this is where we take all of your questions, thoughts, comments, all of the things you're not already watching on the Buccaneers Facebook page. You can head on over there, and that is where I will find them as in the
comment section underneath our live videos. As we get people a chance to start leaving them there. I figured we would talk about some of the upcoming things on the schedule that this time of year. I know it can seem like there's not a lot going on, but thankfully we will have. We have a couple of things already in progress. Where tell us a little bit about the franchise tag deadlines. Yeah, the franchise tag window, the window for putting franchise or transition tags on your players, actually
open yesterday, which was Tuesday. Did you notice that yesterday? Yes, it was already. It was already a big day for anybody who like that kind of thing. But then it's the beginning of the franchise tag window. Though honestly, they probably just should say when the franchise tag deadline is, because teams genuinely wait till the very end of it anyway, just in case something happens that's relevant. There's no rush
to put the tag on right now. They can't become a free agent until like eight days after the franchise tag windows, So I don't think you're gonna see a ton of activity on that until you get much closer to the March eighth deadline. But you might start seeing some teams using those tags at this point, and the Books could be one of them, right, And so tell people a little bit again about who we think has a chance of it being used on who even qualifies
for that. Just a little bit more about how that works. Well, there's three types of tags you can use. There's an exclusive franchise tag and there's a non exclusive franchise tag. And as those names suggest, one of them, the exclusive one means nobody else can negotiate with this player, and the exclusive non exclusive one says other teams can negotiate
with the player. And the reason you would choose non exclusive over exclusive is because the formula for figuring out the one year salary comes out a little bit lower because it's like the average of the top ten guys at the position rather than top five. It's more complicated
than that, but that's the basic idea. Um. If you run an exclusive tag and another team signs you to an offer, the home team has the h has the team that owned that player originally, I mean owned the team that had the contract that player originally has the right to match, and if they don't match, they get compensation and it's usually like two first round draft picks. So even though it's a non exclusive tag, you almost
never see those players go to other teams. And then the transition tag is like the non exclusive tag, except you don't get any compensation if you don't match. So it's just a matter of how much do you want to commit to the salary and how much protection that gives you for keeping that player. And as we talked about when we discussed this this idea last week, to me, the most likely one on the Buck's long list of
free agents is cornerback Carlton Davis. Uh. It's just hard to let a twenty five year old, potential shutdown cornerback go, and that's a really hard thing to develop in the NFL. And so I know the Buckets will try to keep Carlton as much as I possibly can. Okay, And the next on the schedule is the Combine. I know you and I are both going to be heading out there
next week. You'll be there to hear UH coach and Jason speak whenever they have their press conferences, and I'll be doing some interviews with some of our scouting department another front office people. So make sure everybody stays tuned for all the coverage on that on Buccaneers dot com.
But UH, tell us a little bit about the Combine after not having it last year, what we thought it might look like this year, what we think it is gonna look like, and how that could potentially affect being able to find some of these players is compared to years like last year where it didn't exist. Well, first of all, a little more on what you're talking about
about what we're gonna be doing up there. We are also on Buccaneers got dot Com going to carry the Bruce Arians and Jason light press conferences from the podiums live, so you can watch that. I'll be there covering it
and tweeting about it. Those two guys generally also do an off camera session, just a little roundtable with any Buccaneers writers that are there, So there's even more to get from that, and I'll be reporting on that as well, and then we'll have our show from there on Wednesday morning. Um right, yep, absolutely, so that's gonna be great. Um. But yeah, so I know there was some interesting news
about the combine itself recently. Yeah, the NFL had announced that the players are going to be in a bubble, pretty restrictive bubble while they were there, and for obvious reasons. You know what the motivation for that was. But I think the part that really UM a lot of the
players and their agents didn't like was they were. They would have been restricted to one support person, so they only have one, say, trainer, and some of them have a number of trainers and others that are there to help them with the medical side of it, with getting
right ready for their workouts and optimizing the workouts. And so I think around a hundred and fifth years so UH prospects had protested and there was the possibility of them not coming, and the NFL has since decided to scrap the bubble prospect the bubble idea, and it will be more like a regular combine. And so it looks like all three are in thirty or so prospects are going to be there, so you know, as always the combine,
it is a great opportunity. Even though these guys are very well scouted by scouts and coaches around the league and here in this building through their game tape. UH, they it's a really good opportunity for the entire league to be in one spot and for teams to be able to get a whole lot of one on one interviews with these players. Last year, those those interviews had to be done by Zoom and as Jason Lats has said,
they did a great job of making it work. But clearly this is a better opportunity for both the players and the personnel people in the league. So getting everybody in the same spot and getting those meetings is probably the part that teams missed last year that they're going to enjoy this year, okay, And then getting to some of our questions from the Facebook page, age asked, how do you see the backfield shaping up? Who do you
see staying? Who do you see leaving offensive backfield? I assume that means so the only two guys that are under contract right now are Keyshaw Vaughan and Kenyan Barner. Um. Keyshawn Vaughan, I would assume he would stay and maybe get a chance at a bigger role. Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones and Giovanni Bernard as well. But for Neette and Jones, who went into last season sort of list as one A, one B as starters, they're both unrestricted free agents. I would be shocked if we got both
of them back. I think the Buccaneers would would probably love to get one of them back. Um Leonard Fournette obviously took over as the main back. He was so great in the playoffs all the way to the Super Bowl, and then even though at the beginning of last year, Bruce arians was calling for Jones starters one A and one B, basically it didn't take for Nette long to
really take over that role. And the fact that he's a decent pass catcher, high volume pass catcher, really out of the backfield and his blocking has improved me you could put him on the field for three downs and I think that's why. Probably he was the guy that really grabbed that biggest part of the role. So I would think he'd be a guy the Buccaneers would like that back, but after playing on two consecutive one year deals, he might be looking for something a little bit long,
more long term. Okay, And our next one is from Jonathan. He asked, do you think Gronk will stay with the Bucks? And then I'll kind of add to that of just in general, what do you think that tight end room could look like? And I mean for years it's been something that the Bucks have not needed to look at and draft and free agency, it was just it was one of the most set rooms there were. What do you think could potentially it could look like this year some of the changes that could be made, and do
you think Gronk will be a part of it. You know, Rob Gronkowski decided to come back after his one year of retirement. I'm sure part of that was because he felt better. Um, you know, he originally retired basically just because of an accumulation of injuries and aches and pains, and and after a year off he felt better. But I'm not sure he would have come out of retirement
if it hadn't been to play with Tom Brady. And now that Tom Brady has said he won't be playing, Um, you know, I think to me, that's a domino in the direction of Rob Gronkowski not coming back. Now, I hope that's not the case, because yes, he has a special connection with with Tom Brady, but he could still be a very very valuable piece of the offense with
any quarterback we had out there. So I just thought when Tom Brady retired that that would be if you were if you were nudging Rob Gronkowski in one direction or other, that I would seen nudge and more towards not coming back. And then uh, come wrong, Hope I'm wrong, Yeah, right, I I agree, um Cord had brought up the free agents on the defensive line and what that group could
potentially look like this next year. Okay, so the free agent Sary and Dominican Sue and if we're calling, are we I guess we're probably counting the addressers as part of that. So j PP when domin Kan Sue, Will Golston, Uh, Steve McClendon, Oh, I do have a list over there, Steve mcclindon. I think that's it. Um, Patrick Cock Connors are a restrictive free agent. Oh in Dominican Sue? Did
I say that one? Yeah? Um? Yeah? Again? Is the Dominicant suite part is he's been playing on one year contracts for a number of years now, which has always led me to believe that he is contemplating each offseason if he wants to continue his career. You know, he's already played twelve seasons and he never misses a game and for most of his career has played a huge number of snaps. So this is a guy that's played
a lot of football. Uh. Still very effective for us the last couple of years, obviously, But I think that all comes down to him. Uh, it's pretty obvious from hearing Will Golston talk that he loves being in Tampa, that he really likes his fit here with this team and especially in this defense. His career has really been rejuvenated, I think over the last three years because he's been such a perfect fit in Todd Bowles's defense. So, you know, assuming that they can make that price work, I we
think he'd want to come back. He's already played two full contracts, which is pretty awesome, especially for a fourth row pick. And then you're talking about Steve McClendon JPP. JPP may have a lot to do with how he feels um and I don't know. I really can't speak much to what Steve mcclinton's plans might be. Okay, well, that is going to do it for us on this edition of Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thanks as always for those amazing questions and we will see
you next week from the Combine in Indianapolis. To make sure you tune in