Free Agency Rumors & Breaking Down Draft Needs | Bucs Insider

basically free agency and draft. That's it. That's what everyone's talking about, and one is going to affect the other, and there's just so many potential dominoes. And we've had to say so many times that we still don't know a lot, which is always very tough this time of year. But I figured we could at least talk about some of the mock drafts, because that's not about knowing. Nobody knows, yes exactly, which we can all do. We're all very

good everybody. Yes. So I know that you and Carmen have both done your mock draft, you've done one together recently, and so I just want to hear your thoughts on what your mock draft said, and then some of the other ones that you've been looking at out there and what it maybe says about what the Bucks might do.

So the way we did it and the way we'll do it every couple of weeks until we get close into our own mock draft, as we did one where we just alternated picks um, which does throw a little bit of a little bit of more guests work into it, because if you're doing your own mock draft one to thirty two and you can maybe fudge a little bit, I'd really like to see this guy get to seven, so I won't want to go to team six. Right, Well, that can't really happen when somebody else's picking. So we

were going along. I think a lot of the picks are what you've seen, you know, obviously, starting with Jeff Burrow and Chase Young and the cornerback from Ohio State and all that. But around nine or ten, uh, some team took. We had some team taken offensive lineman and Carmen and her ride up said she thought this was gonna start a run, but it really didn't. And what ended up happening is at fourteen where the Bucks are

Tristan Worths. The Ioway tackles was considered one of the top prospects at that position was sitting there and that's who Carmen took and and honestly, if I had had that pick, I would have taken him as well. And I think we've said several times on the show, as we've talked in weeks that I just think there's a really good combination of what the Bucks need and value in this particular draft for it to work out at number fourteen, and it did in that mock draft. Yeah, yeah,

that's an interesting point. Um. We also had somebody uh asked, I think it was Scott said, if the Bucks don't, yep, great name, you're a big fan, not bias at all. If the Bucks don't take a quarterback in the first round, can you see them taking one later? And if so, who, Yeah,

I mean sure a second round pick. You know, I saw a mock draft I was reading yesterday that we took I think an offensive linement at fourteen, but they had us trade up to the bottom of the first round to get I believe Jordan's love the is that the Utah statum with a big arm um. A lot of guys, a lot of people connect that to Bruce arians because like he wants a big arm quarterback who

can throw the ball down field. Um. Yeah, so you can see if you can get that guy at the very end of round one, then he maybe is also available in round two. We're about let's see thirteen picks in a round two I believe pick number forty five overall. So sure it could happen, and that could be an interesting approach that the Buckaneers take. Basically, we know what the options are at quarterback, right either James Winson's back, or you signed a veteran free agent or your draft guy,

or some combination of both. So maybe if you signed a veteran who is going to be a couple of year stop gap, then you also draft a guy that you're hoping you can develop. So sure I could see that. Okay, Um, we had a few different questions about now that um, Philip Rivers and the Charges have announced that he will enter free agency, which you were actually we were talking about this before the show. You were pointing out as

a little bit different than if he had actually been released. Yeah, take like Greg Olson, greg Olson, the tight end has been so good for Carolina for so long. They actually released him on February second, and so he has actually visited a couple of teams. I think Seattle and Washington, and obviously Washington makes a lot of sense because reuniting with Ron rivera. UM, I don't know. I didn't check this morning. The Chargers and and Philip Rivers. Obviously they

made a statement. They all made statements and made it clear that they wouldn't pursue him in free agency and that so their time together is over, right. But if they haven't released him yet, and I honestly I have to admit I don't know. I didn't check. I wish I hadn't. But if they haven't released him yet, he can't start going and negotiating with other teams yet. They'd have to wait until that seventy two hour period beforehand.

But they might at some point make a move. I mean, it would make sense if there if they obviously have a lot of respect for him, as they said in their statements, if they want to give him the opportunity to go ahead and get started finding a new home legally under the system, then then they would release him. So we'll see what happens. But I think that the way it was worded was they'll let him inter free

agency which sounds like no roster moving right, That makes sense. Um, So we've had a few different questions of if you were to be looking at Tom Brady or Philip Rivers as potential options, as are the two names that everyone keeps loving to to throw out there, which would you prefer? Which would fit better here? And then this system? M I mean, who's gonna say no to either of those two guys? Right? I mean Tom Brady is probably the greatest of all time and Philip Rivers has Hall of

Fame numbers. Uh, I guess neither of them necessarily has the huge arm anymore. I don't know if tom Brady ever did have the huge on downfield arm and Philip Rivers did, but um, probably not as much anymore. Let mean, come on, it's Tom Brady and Philip Rivers. I think they could do find in any SyncE. It's hard not to pick Tom Brady when you have the option picking one of, if not the greatest quarterback of all time. It's hard to say no right between those two sides. Yeah,

that's a good point. Um. Mike had said he's heard rumors that there's a possibility that the team wants to trade up to number one, So I feel like we can address that and then also just overall the likelihood of them trading up at all, maybe not just to number one, but in General's a lot to talk about there at first of all, beginning with the very beginning of that question rumors, um, I think what I would call that one is speculation, and you're going to see

an awful lot of that. You'll see a report that the Buccaneers are considering this, and as you followed back through the steps, like maybe you're reading it on Pro Football Talk and they they've got it from some blog, and you realize what it was was a radio guy making that speculation on his show. Does he really have a source that the Buccaneers want to trade up? One

will never know. That's a really really aggressive move, not really in keeping with what Jason light has normally done in the first round of drafts, and it probably just sprang from a speculation, But we can't discuss the possibility. I mean, the thing about that trade is going from

fourteen to one is super super super expensive. But we do have a pretty close analog from recent years when the Rams traded up to get Jared Goff that was sixteen I think sixteen, they went from fifteen to one, which I mean, that's really really rare, and I remember correctly. It costs them obviously their their first that year, but that's just the switch up a second, their first and second the next year at least, and there might have

been more. So you're probably thinking, you're probably looking at um. I don't consider it when you trade up from fifteen to one. I don't feel like if you trade it, if you gave him another two first round picks there, I don't think that's trading three first round picks because you're at the first. One is just a flip. That improvement of your first round pick. So it's technically just to the year in order to make the move from

fourteen to one. What else is in there? Right? That's a good point, and I think it could cost as much as to first and a second. I mean, are you really willing to do that? It's a lot, Yeah, that can be a lot of Um. I also think Cincinnati would be well, I mean, I guess if they can get a king's ransom, you'd have to consider it, But otherwise I think Cincinnai should stay put and probably yeah, um John asked do you think the Bucks have an eye on a running back to bring in. I wonder

if they mean freed InCor the draft. Um, I think, I mean probably just wrote about this before. Even it doesn't even matter how you feel about the running backs we had last year. I think we almost certainly will have at least one, if not two more running backs simply by the numbers. I mean, right now under contract, you have Ronald Jones, who had a nice step up here right Um, could be a thousand yard guy. I

think it's more carries. But Peyton Barber is a schedule to become an unrestricted free agency there's no guarantee that he'll be back. And then otherwise basically you really have as Dario Goomba, Wally and a guy we had in our practice squad, Eco Cedric Ware. I mean, just surely by the numbers, they're gonna bring somebody in. Will they make a big investment, either in free agency or like a second day pick in the draft or even a first day pick as you see in some mos, Yeah,

it's possible. I wouldn't I wouldn't. You know, there's a lot of teams that will not break the bank for a running back and free agency because they've seen how poorly a lot of those things have gone. I mean, you know Todd Gurley situation for the Rams. Um. I guess Ezekiel Elliott is paying off, but those are the more rare ones. You know, how well is Levan Bell really working out for the Jets considering what he was paid? So are the Buccaneers one of those teams that wouldn't

do that? I think there's a decent chance that's the case. So you know, maybe a mid tier free agent or running back in the second or third round. That seems very plausible. Okay. De Kwon asked when is the CB a deadline and is there any truth to the rumors that quarterbacks will have their own cap space to help

with the ballooning contracts. Well, again, that's not really a rumor so much as an idea that somebody has thrown out there, which isn't a terrible idea because it is tough when the quarterbacks contracts keep getting so huge and they end up being such a big percentage of your roster. So that's what makes a guy like Russell Wilson when you draft him and he's immediately great and for the first five years you haven't cost controlled. You can spend so much more on other positions, but it's hard to

fall into that situation. So taking those two those two questions one at a time, there isn't really any specific deadline, uh, because it does run through so this year is still under the c b A, so I guess would be

sometime next year. But they tend to try to set artificial deadlines like I don't know if you people saw the news in the last week or so that the NFL supposedly had set a sort of a rough deadline of about March eighteen for them to accept the current deal that was on the table, but then that's been walked back a little bit that now we didn't really set in deadline, so you know, the only deadline is one that one side or the other is gonna set, and in the most recent one was just, hey, there's

nothing on the table, this is when we would like you to decide on that. By I do think there's a lot of momentum of them wanting to get it done around the new league year, around March. I've heard a lot about that. And then the other half of that was the quarterback thing. It's an option but um, so far, I think that's just speculation. I don't think that's something that's actually considered a definite part of the agreement. Okay, Jay asked, what do you think Teddy Bridgewater would be

worth on the open market in your opinion? It's a good question, mollion, something like that. I don't I don't know what the I mean, he would be a starter, and he played well last year, and he was a former first round pick. I like him a lot. I think I think he'd be a good starter. Um out

of millions something like that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably so much of that depends on all the other potential quarterback domino pieces this year, that there are so many of them that we don't know if they're

staying where they are, if they're going somewhere else. And then I feel like one move happens and it could cause this whole big the domino effect, And if you have a whole bunch of these top, big name guys all of a sudden in movement, it could push his value maybe down that some of these other guys, or if a lot of guys stay put and then you still have a team or two That thought they were going to have more options, feeling like go either way.

It's like musical chairs. Either there's one too many quarterback which is bad for the quarterbacks, or one too many chairs, which would be good for the quarterbacks. Right, which is an interesting point. Um, What was your point? I just made an analogy for it, Um, which I appreciate, you know, just clarifying ever here, Um David asked, do you think that Jason Lite takes the best player available or more

for need based on his history here? I don't think that any GM in the first round ever goes pure best player available. I think they take best player available that fits what you need. Otherwise, I mean, you could just rank the prospects and by the time we get to the draft there's a lot of areamon on who's best, and it would just go that way. But it doesn't.

You know, if you had there were there were I think Barry Sanders is the best running back of all time, and I think he went third or fourth in the to Detroit, So that means two or three teams passed on him. But you can understand that because they probably had in trench running backs. If you haven't in trench, if you have Zekiel Elliott and another Barry Sanders comes along in this year's draft, and you're picking first and he's the best player, Are you going to take him?

You're not right now. As you get later on in the draft, especially on the third day, I do think they often take they will they do do more of a best player available strategy. If if you know the Bucks, what's the position we're we don't really need right now? Maybe inside linebacker. But if there's a guy just standing out as the best one and he's high above left of any other position you got left, then I think you started taking that guy, even though he's not your

biggest need. Right we have another Scott with a lot of Scots, all right, your your team Scott fan club? Um, he asked. Um. He was saying, you know, we keep talking about quarterbacks, but we still need secondary help. And then he asked, what are the chances we have to get the Honey Badger? But I figured overall we could just talk about do you agree that the needing secondary helper where we are in that? Yeah? I would love. I wish we had managed to land him last year,

but I guess it was just too much. That would have been awesome. He's such a great player, But I don't know for spending that much, you know what I'm saying. And plus I don't believe he's a free agent now. He signed a multi year contract with Kansas City. So there are a ton, however, of names you would recognize of safeties that, unless her teams resigned them are going to be available on the market this year. And of the two parts of the secondary, I think safety is

a bigger need. And Bruce arians essentially said that at the last press conference at the end of the year he started talking about his quarterbacks. I think we're set.

And you can understand that because by the end of the year it looked like those three young guys are your frontline guys, right, and so you don't really need to go spend on another freeging quarterback if you've spent another if you brought in another high priced free agent cornerback who gets bumped from the top three, you know you like all those guys, Sean, if you bunt Carlton Davis and Jamal Dean. So then you talk about safety

and said, I think we're set at safety. But then Bekase said, well, maybe maybe notn you're talking about the injury situation with Justin Evans is still a big question mark. They did like um Dacota Dixon, but he got hurt and and really isn't proving yet. But I like him a lot. So there's a lot more question marks at safety, and UH, I do think safety is a position the Bucks could look at with a value signing and free agency.

And there are a lot of them out there. I mean, the two big names that will get the biggest contracts are Justin Simmons and Anthony Harris. I don't think those two guys are probably our targets. But there's a ton of other guys out there, like Rodney McLeod and Trey Boston, and I can't even think of them all right now, but I did write about that. If you want to go look in the archive. Okay, Um, I'll try to close. We got a few more here, but I'll try to

go fairly quickly. Aaron asked, how soon do you think we could get a deal done with Shaq Barrett. I tend to think, as I've said before, that these things UH kind of bump towards the deadline because both teams, both sides are probably trying to get a little bit more of what they want, right and so just there's no reason to settle until the deadline is looming. And I looked at all these all the players that we resigned.

I went through our transactions for like the last ten years, and all the bigger name guys that we resigned before the start of free agency were always in March, you know, they're not in February. And this year the deadline the free agencies until March eighteenth, which is later. It's usually more around like the tenth, So there's a lot of time now. If the Buckaneers don't have them signed by March tenth and they're worried, you might get a franchise

tag right then. As we've said before, though that doesn't stop negotiations. That just you could you could he could eventually play on that franchise tag, but also you can just use that as a way to extend your exclusive negotiating window and still get a long term deal done afterwards. So it could be quite some time at the Pro Bowl um when Shack was being interviewed about this in the same vein he's done every time he's been interviewed

about this subject since. Still, while the season was going on. He makes a very clear or than he wants to stay here and he thinks it's gonna work out here, and it's all always very very positive. But somebody asked him, well, does it feel good knowing that this will all be resolved by March? And he kind of laughed when, I'm not sure it's gonna be resolved, right, So just take that and then um, we'll close it this one. Jonathan said, do you think O J. Howard is actually on the

trade block? And if so, what are the chances we actually trade him? I usually I'm skeptic skeptical about those things, but there's sometimes where there's a lot of smoke, there's fire, and you do keep hearing about that a lot. Um. I I honestly don't know if we've had trade discussions for O J with anyone, but it's certainly possible. What was the second half of that one, just what the chances would be that we actually trade him? Is he

one of the people on the trade block? And what would be the chances, if so, that we would be able to trade him? Um? I still consider the chances low, and I think the more likely path forward is they're gonna try again and see if they can get the production out of him that they thought they would get last year. But it's possible, right all right, Well, thanks

so much all of you guys who submitted questions. We're here every Wednesday at ten am, and of course we know there's a lot more free agency and draft questions that we didn't get a chance to get to, so make sure you're back here next week submitting even more of them, and we'll see you then. M