Welcome into Books Insider, coming to you from the Bucks Studio, presented by ticket Master at Casey Phillips here with Scott Smith and Breed Dix. And you know what, we just keep having coaching news. I love it. It keeps things interesting in the off season. We got some promotions, we got some new people. Never a dull moment, Never a dull moment. The NFL has mastered the off season, never being really an off season. So first tell us about the new additions to the squad.
Before we do that. Can we revisit our Super Bowl picks?
Nope?
No, remember when we did that before?
I don't recall that.
And some one of us said that they thought Philly would win because of the defense.
We can cut this part out later.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
The coaches have made some The Buccaneers have made some coaching moves in I think there's still some more to come.
But what we know for that's been reported.
The Buccaneers haven't actually even you know, officially released this, but it's it was talked about it at Josh Garzzard's press conference and it's out there. So one edition to the staff is Convince Henson. Covince Henson Josh Grizzard interacted with, intersected with when Josh was a player at Yale. Most recently, Henson's been the i think past game coordinator at Oregon State for the last five or six years and was even the interim head coach for a Bowl game in
twenty twenty three. And then we also have the addition of Charlie Strong, who people in this area shurely know well because he was the USF head coach for three years. He's also been the head coach excuse me ed Texas and Louisville. Was a two time Big East Coach of the Year. And he's had only in his forty one years of coaching only one of them has been on the NFL level.
That was with the Jaguars for twenty.
Three so this is kind of a new era for him. So, you know, those seems like some pretty quality additions to the staff.
I think that's great and I always love when someone wants to bring it. You know, the way Grizzard wanted to bring in Hinson that if he was a player and he was a coach at the time. I love that idea that a player liked the coach enough. Yeah, right, I think that's a great sign of the kind of relationship a coach has with the players of Hey, this was a guy who was my coach, right and I really liked him to now want him to come here, So I think that's great. And then yeah, Charlie Strong
exciting to already have Tampa connections, which is great. And then in addition, there were also some promotions. So those were the new faces. Yes, who are the faces who were already here that got promoted.
Kevin Carberry was promoted to run game coordinator and offensive line coach, and then Brian Pacucci was promoted to offensive line coach as well, so well deserved after just the significant strides that the run game took this previous season, going from being ranked last in the NFL to being fourth.
This past year.
Just the obviously Bucky Irving led so many statistical categories, led the league in forst mestackical percentage, and just the way that the offensive line, especially with several new faces Tristan Wurf's on the left side, you had a rookie center Ben Bredeson coming in New so just kind of the cohesion that they were able to have, and just really throughout the year being able to have a balanced approach.
So exciting to have those spaces back.
Yeah, you could hardly have much more of an improvement here every year than the Bucks did.
It's unbelievable. I mean, I really, I don't know how we would even try to find these stats. But how many times in NFL history, in any major category has a team gone from that big of a jump to be in the top five.
It's just fifty more yards per game.
It makes a big difference.
It's a huge difference in the game overall. All right, So those were some of our coaching news. Now our favorite segment, Can we stump Scott? Is the question? Actually, we have not enjoyed this segment recently because you have not been able to stump him. I feel good about today. I feel good about it, and it's still fair. It's again, it's not like a weirdly obscure thing. It's a fair question. But I'm hopeful third time is the charm here average. Yeah,
good luck with that. Even if you get it wrong, You're still a Hall of Fame baseball player. Can you read us the questions that had.
Sent in by a with pleasure? Okay, are you ready? Scott?
I guess how many Heisman Trophy winners have played for the Buccaneers and.
Who are they?
Oh? Boy, I think you got me.
You think this is it? Who?
Okay?
So I know I know the quarterbacks because when we got Baker there was a note about this, and so I know four quarterbacks, but I feel like there's got to be several more, like there's probably six or seven.
Maybe like a running back here, yeah, you know, like some other positions that maybe weren't cubing.
Okay, the quarterbacks are Steve Spurrier, Vinny Testaverdi, James Winston, and Baker Mayfield. But I can't believe that's it because that's too easy.
Uh. I know.
I assume bo Jackson doesn't count.
Because that was the key part of the question.
Played played for yeah, but famously drafted him first.
I bet they were also that was part of them thinking they could like maybe.
I'd say Bojo.
I assume the way the question is worded that bo Jackson doesn't count. So I've only got four. If it's any more than four, then I lost.
Okay, so they were actually five and you did you miss one?
Congratulations?
So only five?
Yes, only five? To be only so you missed wide receiver Tim Brown.
It was here for like ten games, seriously for one season last season in two thousand.
And four, and we wanted to shout out the fans.
I didn't even remember that Tim Brown.
Look at that.
I would not have given me five names. I'm not sure I would have picked this one. I didn't remember the Tim Brown, or if I ever knew that Tim Brown will the.
Fan who sent in it. This is our rule is that if you stump Scott, then we give you a shout on on the show. And I love that this fan their Instagram handle they just go by Casey like the letters. But I get to just say that Casey can stump.
You can not be me.
But I will still take for the name it.
I got eighty percent of it you did, which is not bad.
Again, the batting average, the shooting percentage, you're still doing really well. So yeah, thank you again for sending that in. And we still want more stump Scott questions. Look how fun that was when we got to stump there. Please, it was great for all of us. But Scott, so continue to send those in. We really appreciate it. Send them either to myself or Bree on.
Social media, okay, and sometimes we'll still have the trivia questions with the fans.
We will well still, yeah, we've just continued to have good ones from fans. If we don't get one, then we'll go back to also our our normal trivia and then you can continue to embarrass us with that trivia as well. We got to go back and forth. Make sure you're still asking about that. Okay. So now another thing we want to do this offseason is we just want to do some player spotlights, looking back at certain things that guys did in the season and recapping their stats,
their contributions, and things that stood out to us. So we're going to pick one player on offense, one player on defense, and do a little bit of a recap of what stood out to us. So I know that we're starting off offense, Tristan worse. Not a bad place to start on the seame. So tell me what stood out to you about this season.
Well, he became the first player ever to get All Pro honors at both left tackle and right tackle, had the second lowest pressure rate allowed among left tackles with at least two hundred past block snaps, down from his eight percent pressure rate. He recorded in twenty twenty three, but he didn't allow a single pressure in four games in twenty twenty four, and he was the only player at his position to do that with a minimum of twenty five past block snaps. Can't say enough about the
job he did. I mean, just a technician and not only protecting Baker Mayfield, but also just kind of elevating the run game, just with his lateral quickness for kind of those those gap duties that kind of became the Bucks bread and butter in twenty twenty four. Just explosive drive blocker, and man, there's not He's as good as it gets at his position.
In the NFL.
I think the thing that stood up the most to me of all that you said there was how his pressure rate allowed dropped significantly from his first year left tackle yeah to his second year. I mean, he was already pretty good right when he made that move that first year at left tackle, but he's obviously settled in even more now. He's clearly one of the best, not even close one of the best left tackles in the game, if not the best.
It's crazy to think that he went through a period of anxiety about this switch and now yeah, we're like, again, all pro, I'm still elite just at this position to
continue to be improving at it. And again to your point of that improvement of year one to year two, thinking of it like you would a new player at a new position that you know he's only going to get more comfortable there, and so to see how well he did his first year then there was improvement again, just how exciting that is moving forward to this team. So defensively on the flip side, we wanted to highlight ya YadA Yabi tell me about this year for him and what we thought, well.
This is a player like you just described going from his first to his second season, and everybody remembers that ya ya was really a great breakout story as a rookie of the third round edge rusher that they drafted mostly because they thought he'd be really good setting the edge against the line and anything they got as a
pass rusher out of was a bonus. As it turns out, he's a pretty darn good pass rusher and so to get that in the third round was great and you look at that and he had seven point five sacks as a rookie, and then this past year that dropped a four point five, so you might be tempted to think he regressed, he went the wrong way in Week two, but you have to look past the stats, and I mean the sack stats, and when you do, it's very very clear that ya Ya took a big step forward
and was probably or no surely our most effective edge rusher in that rotation because as a rookie and also against the run. As a rookie, he had twenty six pressures and nine run stuffs, which is when you stop running back for zero or negative yards, and he had a pressure rate on pass rushes of nine point one percent. This year he went from twenty six to fifty seven quarterback pressures more than double, and from nine run stuffs to thirteen, and his pressure rate jumped a big jump
from nine point one to thirteen point three. So it was a very good step forward for ya Ya. Yeah, he only had four point five sacks, but two and a half of those came in the last three games when it was crunched on, you know, and we really
needed those plays. And of course he was the NFC defensive Player in the week for his big impact against the Saints in the last game and It's funny because I remember writing about it towards the end of the season, and essentially, ya Ya just decided, like in December to stop worrying about the sack stats because they weren't coming. He had like two he had too maybe at that point, he said, and he just decided, I'm not gonna worry about the sacks. I'm just gonna keep playing, and sacks come.
They come, But you know, I'm doing what the coaches want and I'm it's working, and I'm just like and then the sacks started coming, right.
I guess that's a philosophy that maybe we can adopt. Just don't worry about worry about the numbers, worry about it, you know.
And he's someone that I think I always love meeting players who are just ferocious on the field and then just the kindest, gentlest people off that he looks like this action figure, looks like he should just be bursting through walls here the facility and is just the nicest, kind of sweetest person. And also shout out to him that this last week Metropolitan Ministry has had a huge fundraiser.
He came to it to support see a lot of people and he's so good at that if he's shown up at the girls preseason's Clive Football Tournament, that he's a guy who does a lot of the asks for community things and just does everything the right way. So not only has he been just a great addition on the field, but also off the field. And he's just as we talk about that who they want a Buccaneer draft pick to be of the both on and off
the field and their mentality. I feel like, yeah, Yah's definitely one of those people.
Is that man?
All Right? So now we are going to do a stat of the week, and I think this is a really cool thing of looking at these NGS stats of the week and what they can reveal. So tell me Scott what we have this week. Yeah.
I was looking through Baker's stats and one thing that stood out at me, according to the Next Gen Stats, is that he threw for nine hundred and sixty seven yards on passes that were thrown behind the line of scrimmage so caught behind the line of scrimmage in twenty twenty four, which was not only the most of any quarterback in the NFL this season, but it is the second most for any quarterback in any season since NGS
started tracking these things in twenty sixteen. So that's you know, that's an indication of what a major part of the book's passing game was.
And despite a lot of those low A dot.
Throws average steps to target throws, the Bucks still had I think the third most.
Productive passing game in the NFL.
Right, And I think it speaks to the number of players that the Bucks had who are so good after the catch, right, Yeah, I.
Mean, looking at we've talked so much about Bucky. We know that Chris Godwin's been great at it. We know that there's just so many people who and how nice for quarterback to know that of when I throw this ball, that's probably not the end of the play, that they're going to keep getting more. That makes such a difference to everybody. So now, also we wanted to talk about free agent deep dives. So this is the time of
year that the next big thing on the calendar. Of course we have the Combine, but then it's free agency before you actually get to the draft. And in recent years we've talked about this and just talked about how we had this eternally long list or just playing key key players on this list. This year, it is not nearly as many quantity wise, or as many of what you think of as your key players. Doesn't mean there
aren't some very important names still on this list. And so we wanted to talk about the inside linebacker group. We were going to just pick one, but then we realized kind of the whole idea is almost that whole room could potentially be free agents this year, and so to decide what the team is going to do at that pass position is going to be so interesting, both from a free agency standpoint and then therefore a draft standpoint.
So tell me a little bit for you guys about what stood out about the different guys who are the free agents in the room. What are the different things that stood about stood out about the way they performed this last year, and what you think the team.
Might do well.
Levante David third year in a row. You know, he's played the last four seasons on a two year contract and then a one year and a one year.
So I think they do that just so we get to keep talking about this. They give us again that content every year to talk about everybody panicking about not having a Levante.
David in the Yeah, well, I think when it comes to Levante. It's probably up to Levante, right, I mean, I can't imagine the Bucks not wanting Levonte back if he can wants to keep playing and maybe just one more.
I think if he was ninety years old, it'd still be.
Like, yes, yeah, And they've found a way in the last few years to get the contract numbers right, so it's you know, it's respectful and worthwhile for Levante, So hopefully he's motivated to play again and they get that done. Because also kJ Britson unrestricted free agent, and JJ Russ is a pending restricted free agent as long as he gets the tender offer.
So potentially facing mass exodus at that position group. But I think also you're going to see probably a big year for Servassier Dennis, who the Bucks had drafted and he only ended up playing four games and kind of split time with kJ britt and kind of some of those clear passing situations alongside Lavonte David on third down, and then he had the shoulder injury that he kind of aggravated and then was put on IR and ended up having surgery, so he missed the vast majority of
the season. But I think he could potentially have a big year depending on what ends up happening, or who we retain or who the Bucks end up going after in the draft or free agency.
Yeah.
And you know, just to circle back to Levante, he's one of only four players since the tackles started being tracked well in nineteen ninety four who have compiled fifteen hundred plus tackles, thirty five plus sacks, and ten plus interceptions. And the others are Ray Lewis, who's in the Hall of Fame, Bobby Wagner, who probably won't be in London. Fletcher was a very very good player for a long time. So just think about the season that Atlante just put
together in his thirteenth season. Yep, Yeah, he tackles, yeah, and led the team. He was a Pro Bowl alternate, so obviously still playing a very high level. And he also had five point five sex, which is most in.
A long time.
Yeah, And a lot of that was because while Devin White was here and he was such a good pass rusher up the middle, that's who they were sending. And then Devin White departs and like, well, we need we need somebody to take that up and to go, okay, I'll do it.
And he was great at it.
He talked about a little bit on our show about that idea of how he was very content to send the young buck to go do that earlier on if he was like, by all means, Devin, you go do that. But then he started doing it again and was like, oh, yeah, this is fun. I do enjoy this. So yeah, I think he enjoyed getting to do that aspect of the game a little bit more this last season and again
proved that he is really good at it. And that's where I think you also saw his mental part of the game that is so strong and that's so important at that position that you know he depending on how he is at physically after playing thirteen years, probably whatever deficit he has physically he's making up for in just that intuition he's talked about that, Yeah, you can tell as he goes to shoot, those gaps are predicting where the quarterback is going to go. Where it's like he
knows where he needs to go. All right. So we're going to close our show this week with our off the field human interest side, and we wanted to promote what is going on right here right now actually at the Advent Health Training Center that is the seventh annual Girls Flag Football Preseason Classic presented by Advent Health. Okay, this is one of the coolest events we do. We love everything about this. There are games going on both in the outdoor fields and in the indoor practice facility
right now. It is the largest girls flag football tournament in the country and the world, in the galaxy, the universe, all of it. This is it. This is the largest flag football tournament. This year's competition. Are you ready for these numbers? New record mark. It's like basically every year they're just more and more and more people are joining, setting new records. Look at this one hundred and fifteen teams, goodness, and nearly twenty five hundred athletes and it's from twenty
different counties across Florida. And see, we were just talking about that with all those guys. Yeah, yeah, and that was Jose and c. J. Brews, some guys going out to hang out. This has been incredible. I mean, first of all, the photos are incredible. Look at our team and these athletes are unbelievable. Whenever I've gotten some free time, I've popped my head out there just to watch and I'm like, I think we should sign some of the
pretty good. So, yeah, this is an incredible tournament. We just want to make sure that everybody knew this was going on and make sure you stay tuned for all of our coverage here on it. We got a lot of photos, a lot of videos, and it is a blast to watch and just a reminder, this is going to be an Olympic sport coming up soon, So commence fandom now so you're not a bandwagoner in twenty twenty eight for the Olympics.
This is the time I love football. I've been on for a long time.
It is so funny and I am so jealous. We didn't have it when I was in high school growing up in Texas, where football is all the things.
I would have given anything. Yeah, we just had powder puff.
Yeah, yep, we had powder puff. This was like one one game game.
We didn't get a league.
Yeah, there was no practicing, there was no planning. It was just running around like chickens where our heads cut off. I would have loved this.
And what you said there that each year we keep breaking records for more teams and more athletes just shows you the health of this growing sport. And it's just fantastic that's happening, and I think the Buccaneers deserve a lot of credit for helping that grow.
I agree, Yeah, this is definitely Our organization has been on this from very early on that this has been a priority of keeping you know, girls and women in sports. And one of their big things they talk about is the fact that this huge percentage of female executives in the business world have played sports way but women drop out of sports at a much higher rate than men, and so trying to find ways to keep women and
girls in sports longer. Seeing the connection to building future leaders, future executives with this, and I know I felt like being involved in sports was a huge aspect for me of learning how to be prepared for I mean, obviously I ended up working in sports, which is handy, but for anything, you know, the team work, in the drive
and the commitment and dedication. So it's really cool to watch how the Buccaneers have prioritized this, and yeah, make sure you stay tuned to this tournament going on throughout the rest of this week as well. That is going to do it for us on this edition of Bucks Insider. So much for being with us, Thanks for stumping Scott and we'll see it