Good morning, Buck, sayans, how's everybody doing? Casey Phillips was a senior writer and editor Scott Smith. And this is where we take all of your thoughts, comments, questions in regards to the Buccaneers on Buccaneers Insider Life presented by Miller Lte And if you have a question for us, make sure you head on over to the Facebook page put it in the comments section. That is how I
will be able to find it to ask it. And uh, I know that right now it is so weird, Scott, to think about what normally would be happening and things that we normally would be talking about that you and I would have done about a thousand of these normally in the last week from Indianapolis, that the combine typically would have been happening this last week and now would be pretty much over um. Just talking about the timeline of things that we give people a chance to to
submit some of their questions. What normally is happening this time of year, what's happening now in this kind of altered reality that we have, and how that's affecting what we know and what we don't know across the league about things like free agency and the draft and all of that. Yeah, I think we would have just gotten home last day or two from our usual Indianapolis trip and missed the place. Huh, I know, right, Who would
have thought I would miss Indianapolis in February? You know? Um, I think you probably would have some more rumors, uh, some more reports of teams meeting with agents. And I'm not talking about tampering, even though everybody believes that goes on. I'm talking about teams meeting with agents of their own players, their own potential free agents. I'm sure that is still happening in whatever method they want to do. So, I'm sure the gears are turning, but we're not really hearing
very much about it. So um, it feels like the calm before the storm right now. Uh. The the deadline for franchise tags is six days from now, um, so you know, and most of those things probably won't happen until close to the deadline. It's definitely a deadline driven business. I just feel like we're not really without the combine, we don't have the same rumor mill that we normally would have right now, which I don't know if that's good or bad, but it would be kind of nice
to be hearing some reports. Yeah, it's probably be good for the team and bad for us, because this is just what we enjoyed talking about. Um. We had a question from Yas who asked, do you see the Bucks picking up o J's fifth year option? Um? Which I definitely see it because it already happened, right, So yeah, I wanted to maybe let us kind of discuss what
happened with o J. Howard, what his situation is currently. Yeah. Well, first of all, if anybody doesn't know what y'all just talking about, when you draft a player in the first round, UM, the way the c b A works UM is that all those players get automatically get four year deals with a fifth year team option, with the fifth year salary going up quite a bit. But the thing about that is you have to choose as a team to exercise
that option between the third and fourth season. So even though so that already happened last like May with OJA Howard, the Buccaneers did decide to do that, which is a good sign. You know. It means they they thought it was important to be able to keep around for a fifth year. Absolutely. And then we also had Richard asked when will the NFL really least compensation picks for all teams? Pretty soon? Pretty soon? Yeah, real soon, probably within the
next week. I would assume it could be a little bit maybe maybe, uh maybe with the way everything is different, maybe this is different too, and it's it's taking a little bit longer than usual, but that should be pretty soon. I I have read, I believe that there's a chance the Buccaneers will get a fifth round pick out of it.
Um the way that it seems hard to believe that you could sign Tom Brady and still somehow come out on the positive side of it, but the way that it works really the first step in conversation picks as a simple um comparison, you know, just a map of how many you signed and how many didn't, and only only a certain number, I mean, only a certain sort
of agents count. So like Leonard four Nett doesn't count against does as an example, so the Buckets really lost two players account or three that is, and and gain and signed to in Tom Brady and Joe hag So there that's the first step. You've got one more, you lost one more than you gained. And after that then they decide what that one spot is worked so um, I think that I think the player that matters for us as Brashon Perryman, and it could come back. It's
like a fifth or six round pick. Yeah. And I was thinking, I think I'm gonna get to do an interview with Jason light soon, which I'm really excited about. But I was thinking about just wanting to hear your thoughts on how all of the things that have been different in this last year are affecting their decision making process right now. That you lost a lot of college games, scouts weren't able to do a lot of what they typically do in terms of visits, you didn't have a combine, um,
the salary cap is lower. There are just so many things that have been different in this last year. What do you feel like are some of the biggest things that will impact the way they make decisions on what free agents you want to keep, How how comfortable you feel signing guys to certain contracts or the attempts to restructure and there, and who you're gonna target in the draft.
Do you rely on the draft more or less than you know typical years when when you might have a lot less tape on some of these guys, I just want to hear what do you think are the different factors of that will most impact the way they're making
decisions right now. Well, when you look at some of them, some of the top guys available in the draft, a lot of them opted out of the college season, So you're relying on two thousand nineteen tape and those players are probably still just as good, and you've you've you've scouted them already, but there you know, you've seen instances of a player whose senior year wasn't as good as their junior year, and that hurts their draft stock. And they're sure there's sure to be some of those guys
out there. So maybe it's a little bit more of a crapshoot. But as we've talked about, the draft is already a pretty big crap shoot. And and I I throw out the idea last week that may be trading down is a good idea for the Buccaneers because if you get more picks, you just have more chances to hit. If it's if it's harder to hit this year, if you want to go with that theory, then you should have more options if you if you have more picks,
you have more chances to hit. Um. The way the Buccaneers are set up right now, though, if they can get and Jason Light said this when when he spoke a couple of weeks ago, if they can keep that core intact as much as possible from last team, get a lot of these free agents back, they'll hit the draft not really needing uh anything really particularly one one or two positions that they have to hone in on.
And you and I have talked about that a lot, but to hear him say specifically obviously validates it a lot more. Um. You know, he even used the word and luxury pick at one point. So if the Bucks can succeed in keeping most of their core intact, the draft will be interesting. You know. They pick so late that it's hard to predict what who could possibly be there. But they could go up, they could go down, they
could hit a lot of different positions. So um, to me, that's more than the pandemic and the way that everything has been changed. What affects the Bucks in the draft more is assuming that they can keep most of his core intact, is they don't have as glaring of a need as you would normally have. And I was wondering with that, um, knowing how many of your guys you want to keep that you don't have these glaring needs
like maybe you haven't in some other years. Um, is this the first time that it is kind of nice for us that free agency is first that we typically talked about how it would be great to like, you know, be able you know a little bit more of what's out there in free agency than you do the draft, and we've typically said, oh, yeah, we really wish that we could we could draft first. Um, is this a
year that you think this actually helps the Buccaneers. Well, it definitely will will allow them to go into the draft with a good idea if they have blaring needs or not, because I all that I just said about the Bucks having no glaring needs will be different if they lose some of these key free agents. If if you were to lose Shack Barrett or Lavante David or Chris Godwin or in Dominican Sue, you can see right away that one of those positions could easily become much
more a need. So yeah, it'll it'll be good to go into that knowing and really will probably know within the next three weeks or so. I mean, if you go by what happened last year, the franchise dag came down on the last day that you could do the franchise tag, which this year would be March nine. Um, some of the other guys like Jason Pierre Paul signed right before free agency started, and some of them like Don mckensoe started or resigned about a week end of
free agencies. So we're talking about two or three weeks if it's anything like last year, where most of this will be resolved. And when it comes to the franchise tag when you start looking at you know, we we do have several guys that it would kind of make sense to use it on potentially, or you know, guys that you really want to keep, and um, what do you think are going to be some of the factors of deciding who you franchise tag That it's easy for us to all as fans just be like, oh, put
it on this guy, put it on this guy. But you know, there's a lot there in terms of what the franchise tag would would be, and you know what some of your other options are. How deep erre at that position, what what do you think are going to be the things that lead to them deciding whether to use it and who to use it on. I think we'll have a lot to do with how negotiations are
going right now. Um. Jason Light said about the franchise tag a week or so, a week or two ago, that he couldn't tell you who we might use it on because they don't know themselves. And I think that's because if you signed LaMonte David well and there's one off the board, you don't have to worry about using it on, you know, see what I'm saying. So if you can get Chris Godlin sign and Lavante David, then
maybe use it on somebody else. Um. The one guy that is a little more complicated is Shack Barrett because he just had the franchise tag, So giving him the franchise tag again this year means a bump of from what he got last year, So getting pretty high up there in terms of what he would be getting for
the year. Um. So you know, in a in an ideal world, you'd probably get him signed to some sort of long term deal and then if you couldn't get the others, you'd have the franchise tag available for say Chris Goblin or Lavante David. But every player would prefer to get the long term deal, and so hopefully they're making some headway in that regard. All right, well, that is gonna do it for us on this edition of
Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thanks so much for being with us, and we'll see you next time.