Welcome to Bucks Insider, presented by Verizon. Casey Phillips here with senior writer and editor Scott Smith. But he feels like maybe we're just going to have a pattern of we got some new coaches to talk about. Well, feels like this has been a thing now that it's just keep rolling through as guys, you know, that's what happens this time yere, there's turnover all across the league. People get promoted, which you're excited about because it means they did a great job for you.
And then that means you got to fill these spots and or somebody retires or someone.
Retires, which also is part of it today as well. So we figured we would start with this. So speaking of that one with the retirement, let's talk about our special teams.
So we had a special team's coordinator opening because Keith Armstrong retired after thirty years of coaching in the NFL. Lots of success for him, last five here in Tampa. So the Buccaneers interviewed quite a few people and at the end they hit on Thomas mcgahey, who was in the same position for the Giants the last six years.
Their units did some nice things over that time period, particularly in terms of kickoff and punt coverage, which is good to see one thing that whoever was going to inherit at this job or win this job, especially team's cornerator, was going to inherit two really strong legs. Yeah, Chase McLaughlin as a placekicker and Jake Kmart as a punter. Those two, like Jake Camart hit five field goals of fifty yards or more or no, maybe it was seven.
I think it was seven.
The five of them were fifty five or a yarder. And then Jake Camarta led the NFL with eighteen punts of sixty or more. He seemed to get one of those like every game.
Yeah, it just became like routine, which is crazy.
So the Bucks were one of only two teams in the league that had a kicker and a punter ranked in the top five of those two categories. So talk about having a pair of strong legs on your team. Your very few teams can boast what the Buccaneers have. So that's a great thing for Thomas mcgahey coming in. I'm sure he's gonna work on things like getting more out of the return game and stuff like that.
Yeah, that's got to be exciting as a special teams coordinator to feel like you have true weapons. I think that's got to be a great feeling of knowing what all that can mean that you can do. And then I mean, heck, Jake, I think could be a weapon, even in terms of some fakes, some other things.
Waiting for that.
Oh, he talks all he can throw, he can throw, he can incredibly fast, So I'm hopeful that he sees him as a weapon in.
Some other ways too.
Before I get ahead of myself, I should point out that Chase McLaughlin is a pending unrestricted free agent, so he would have to be resigned for him to you know, for this coach to have both of them. I think the Buccaneers are going to put quite a premium on resigning him because we know the history year after year after year, draft picks, free agents, whatever, trying to get
that kicker. And you know, of course Ryan Suckup had a nice three years, but to have a shot at locking down that position with a guy who has very accurate and has a big leg, you don't want to let that get away.
Yes, And then there was another coach announced as well. We know that our offensive line coach Joe Gilbert had left to go be with the Panthers, and so tell us about who will be joining us.
Well, it's Kevin Carberry, who was the assistant oil coach for the Saints, and that's a good place to be if you want to work with an offensive line. The Saints have consistently poured a lot of assets, draft assets and so on into their offensive line. It's always been very, very important for them, especially in the Drew Brees era,
and they've generally had really good offensive line. So he's worked with guys recently like Andrews Pete and Ryan Ramchick, and so he's been around a very good unit for some time now.
And then I know, also this is going to be a really exciting part to talk about in our show.
So we've got those new coaches.
Now, it seems like kind of a dead time year around the Buccaneers right other than basically you have head coach, you've got coaches, you're hiring, you're kind of talking.
About free agency.
But the Buccaneers have something going on right now that I know both of us have talked about. We think is just one of the coolest things out there. So we have the sixth annual Girls Flag Football Classic. This tournament is absolutely incredible.
One plus teams, over.
One hundred teams, I think it's one hundred and nine teams and over two thousand athletes.
All right, this is happening right now.
The Buccaneers are putting it on and games started last night, but there was the actual kickoff event Tuesday night and I got a chance to m see it. It was pretty incredible. But also I know that our co owner Darcy Glazer Cassowitz, this is definitely a passion project of hers, and she spoke on Good Morning Football about the tournament.
One hundred and nineteen. That's incredible.
I love this.
Think back to six years ago because this is not just that overnight that you guys have been devoted to this. Six years ago was when this all started. How has this grown? And how proud are you to see where it's blossom today?
There's year over year growth in participation. It's really this is a sport that's just booming right now. And last night we announced at our opening night that we're going to host the Girls Flag State Championships. So now the season will begin and with the support of the Buccaneers and We're just so happy to be there support all the girls.
It's just amazing to watch this.
And I know also, you know here this is basically the kickoff to the flag football season for all of these athletes. But now also the Bucks are going to be hosting the state championships, which is going to be awesome. So their season is basically beginning and ending here with the Buccaneers showing their support of how much we believe in girls sports, girls being involved in sports, and it's just it's pretty incredible. And so, like I said, I
got to MC the opening night kickof off. We had a panel discussion, we had a bunch of speakers, and it was amazing. I got up to the podium and I looked out. It was literally just a sea of girls' faces in their football jerseys. It was truly an incredible thing. And I just found myself thinking I would have killed for this.
In high school. We didn't have flag football. I'm from Texas.
Anyway that we could have been involved in football would have been an amazing thing. And it's truly incredible.
The way that the Bucks have.
Prioritized this so much and given so many opportunities for these girls and One of the big themes of the event was the fact that flag football is now going to be an Olympic sport, and to think of how Florida is so far ahead so many ways in girls flag football. To note there are potentially girls in that audience Tuesday night, Wow, they could be on the Olympic team. And I was like, that's just such a cool thing to see the way that this sport is growing.
Yeah, well said, I couldn't agree more. I think this is one of the best things the Bucks got going in the community in recent years. I love flag football. I think it's the fact that you've shown how much it's grown, and that sea of faces just shows that this was a void that needed to be filled. This was an opportunity that girls need to have in high school and it's so great that it's growing.
I just love it.
Yep, I completely agree. So yeah, So the games are still going on these next couple nights. It's a four day event, so good luck to all of the athletes participating. Also, in this last week, we had the NFL Honors. It was right after our show we filmed last week, and so tell us a little bit about how the Bucks were honored.
I don't think that we were expecting any award except potentially Baker Mayfield getting Comeback Player of the Year. That actually went to Joe Flacco of the Ravens who played five games.
But yeah, oh wait, of the Browns. I know it's fine, I totally but you know what, that's the whole thing. He was a comeback because all of sudden, it wasn't the raining.
Back off the couch.
Yeah.
Anyway, we did have players that that got recognized and coaches they got you know, the voting system go each voter's forty nine voter voters in each vote first, second, third, and you get five points for first, three points per second, and one point for third. So Baker, for instance, got ten first place vot votes, but he also got like ten second place votes and thirteen third place votes something like that. So he ended up with ninety three points
was third in the list. But you can see here Antoine Winfield got some love for Defensive Player of the Year. I think he was sixth in the balloting. Both Yah Yah and Callijah got a couple of votes throwing their way for Defensive Rookie of the Year. Todd Bowles got a vote for Coach of the Year and Dave Canal it's no longer with us, of course, but he got two votes for Assistant Coach of the Year for what he did with the Buccaneers, So there was some recognition
of what the Buccaneers did. There were no actual awards, but you know, it cool.
Great to see, great to see them there, and of course, again not like we're biased, but we might have thrown a few more votes towards all those people.
But it was good to see there was getting some recognition there. And you know you brought up Chase McLaughlin earlier.
This is the time of year where the whole free agent discussion is huge, especially again as we talked about them hiring coaches of those coaches are intrigued to.
Know who the players are that they'll be coaching.
Yeah, so tell us where we sit at this point in terms of how many, especially unrestricted free agents the Bucks have.
To know what this might look like.
Yeah, the Bucks are facing a list of eighteen potential unrestricted free agents. I say potentially because right now you have the exclusive rights to negotiate, so you could sign any of these guys to a contract between now and the start of the legal tampering period on March eleventh, and nobody else can talk to these guys till then. But if nothing happens, these eighteen guys would hit the open market. This is presented alphabetically, so you know there's some big names at the bottom of both.
You didn't want to irritate anybody make it seem like you prioritize someone over.
We're going alphabetic.
I mean you look at the bottom there. You got Baker Mayfield and Antoine Winfield Junior. Youve got Levante David up there, Mike Evans, Chase McLaughlin, you mentioned Devin White. There's a lot of players that and you know, like Aaron Stinny started for a majority of the season. There's a lot of players up there that you would probably like to get back. I think they have already made their priority list and that they're going to try to get everybody on that list back. It's just you know, how do.
You do it? But can you afford it?
And I'll tell you what, I have faith in Jason light and Mike Greenberg and John Spytech and all those people in that department, because we've seen them navigate several different types of off seasons. We saw after the Super Bowl when they did the whole keep the whole band together thing and somehow resigned everybody, and then did it again for a good extent in twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two, and then last year when a lot of the bills came due from those type of contracts to
keep everybody together type of contracts which were backloaded. The Buccaneers faced the most dead cap space in the league and really had to figure out how to build and keep a competitive team under that restriction and did so. You know, one of the key signings obviously was Baker Mayfield, but they found a way to get done. So this is just basically like a third different type of challenge.
And I've seen enough from the last couple of years to think if they set their minds to it, as long as those players are amenable to returning, which I kind of feel like they are, we'll see. That's up to them, but I think they'll find a way to get done. Everybody on their priority list.
I agree. All right.
Well, something we're doing right now leading up to the draft on Insiders. Each week, we're picking a different position and talking about how likely it is that the Bucks address it, especially early in the draft, so first round, maybe second. So let's talk about in interior offensive line this morning. Where does that rank in your mind in terms of potential for being addressed very early on.
It could be something that the Bucks do in the first two days, and they've done that a lot recently, you know, with Luke Geticky and Cody Mauk, they've been able to find good value like in the second round. It just kind of depends a little bit on this free agency thing. You know, Aaron Steney was the starter there and before him Matt Feiler, and they're both on that free agent list we just looked at. You've got Robert Hainsey, who's your center, but he has a lot
of flexibility on the interior. So if you could find a guy that could play either center or guard or maybe be flexible to play both, you'd have a lot of more options there. And if you could find a guy that you thought was plug and play from day one, like Cody Maulk was last year, you could really build on what they already think is a pretty good offensive line, especially with the way the tackles played last year. If you could get even stronger in the middle. That could
make a big difference. And there's there's some good candidates out.
There, all right, Well, that's going to be interesting to keep an eye on.
And of course, once we get a little bit closer, we'll be doing our Road to the Draft show where we break down even more about some of these different position groups and potential guys that will be targeting. Yes, we will be starting that very very soon. And our last little bit of news here we just thought people might be interested in seeing this. So the Buccaneers are replacing their practice fields outside of the Advent Health Training Center.
You know, those fields go through a lot, see big men running on them a whole lot, especially a lot of those drills. I watched some of the offensive line special teams drills. They tear that sucker up and shout out to Rob Julian, our guy who takes care of all the fields and does an incredible job. And I know for all of us who try to keep along looking nice, we would love to know how he does this.
But yeah, they were restarting it right now.
Well I asked him why because the bucks of the fields always looked really good and they maintain them obviously, very well, And I asked Rob and was given a very detailed answer that made a lot of sense. Now this is going to be skim surface compared to what he told me.
Yeah, but sure got very technical about it, he did.
So this is this facility was open in two thousand and six and these are the original fields from them. They have not been replaced. Now, why do you need to replace them when they look pretty good already? Well, year after year they they bowed those lunes like every day during the season. And when you mow, you know, you get some detritus, you get the clippings, and they try to get those clippings up, but they don't always get them all and so over the course of years
they build up. And he said, if you had looked before we started tearing these fields up and you saw the drainage at the tops of the drainage pipes which used to be flush with the grass, they're now six inches below the surface. That's how much is built up over the what two thousand and six, like seventeen years. So what happens is there's a lot of things that that issues that causes, one of them being the roots. It catches moisture in there in this level above this ground,
and you want your roots to grow down into the ground. Well, the roots don't have to grow in the ground because they can find the moisture here, so you're not getting that firmly entrenched. Also, the field is a little bit softer than they really want it to be, not to the point where players are minded. It's been fine, but ideally you would like it to be a little bit more firm than it is now because of all that
built up is a little soft. So you got all kinds of issues, like you know, insects and whatever diseases that can be fostered in that kind of that big glop on top. So they just want to get back to square one where it's flush with where it's supposed to be.
That's going to be so interesting. I love that you got science on the Insider show.
Very well, we'll give you all of it. You know, some lawn care. What can't you get coming here to Insider. So yes, we'll keep you guys updated on that and show you some of the progress as that goes along as well. That's going to do it for us on this edition of Bucks Insider. We'll see you next time.
M hm.