Welcome into Bucks Insider Casey Phillips here a senior writer and editor Scott Smith. We got guys playing in the building again. We know it's not full football and not full pads, but it's still been great to have these OTA's going on these last few weeks, getting a chance to see some of the new guys, and even a chance to see some of these new guys get signed. So we have another player officially signed under contract with the Buccaneers.
Tell us who that is.
Yesterday after practice, Jalen McMillan, the third round receiver out of Washington, went upstairs to the draft room that's where they always do this, and they take these pictures and signed his first contract. So it's a four year deal. Like every player drafted from the second through seventh rounds get. That leaves just two to sign our first two picks, Graham Barton and Chris braswell, and you can probably count of those getting done in the next couple of weeks.
It's not really all that difficult anymore.
Yeah, and I'm actually glad you brought up that it's in the draft room. I feel like we don't actually always talk about that. People just see the photos and I bet a lot of people don't know, and I feel like, especially for rookies like that, that's got to be a cool moment to know this is this is the.
Room, where's where they got the call from?
Yes, it's true, so I know.
Also again because guys are out here at OTAs, we're going to hear from a few of them, which has been nice.
And you know, we've talked about how this team there's.
Not necessarily going to be a ton of shake up at starting roles from last year, which is great.
It's good. Usually a good sham good exactly so.
But one of the areas that there will be shaga because Devin White left is inside linebacker and I know we've got a chance to hear from kJ Britt recently, but tell us just your thoughts on that position, room and group and what you think that could look like with his departure.
Yeah, well it's gonna have changed there for the first time in a while. You know, Levonte David's been playing since twenty twelve and he's still going strong. And then Devin White's been his running mate since twenty nineteen and now he's with the Eagles left in free agency after five years and for those five years, the Bucks have been running the same system, so it's always required basically two off ball linebackers, and they've been if they're healthy,
they're on the field those two guys. There's been no real opportunity for anybody else if you look at these opportunities.
I mean, Devin missed a little time in twenty twenty due to COVID and Levante missed a few games in twenty twenty one, which down his total percentage, but she could see for the most part, they're on the field for almost every snap until the second half of last year when Devin White ran into some injury issues, and then kJ Britt started to earn a bigger role, and you could see there's where the opportunity finally came, and most specifically for kJ last year, and he did well
in that. I think he showed the coaches that he definitely has a future there. This is a fifth thrown draft pick in twenty twenty one who's finally getting a chance to play a little bit. And the question now is with Devin White gone and obviously needs somebody there. They'll have some packages that might only have one linebacker, but they'll probably have two linebackers on the field most
of the time. kJ Britt seems like the first choice right because he's the one that they put in there last year when Devin was out and everybody knew he's a good downhill thumper. Can he know can he survive and play all three downs? Because he can play when it's an obvious passing situation.
Right.
Coach A Bull said, it's not really that his coverage is lacking. It's just he needed to be more disciplined with his eyes. So he needs to see better and needs to diagnose essentially what's gonna happen.
And obviously this wasn't a position that they prioritized in the draft this year, which meant they felt good about him. And then also they had drafted Servassi Adnnis last year. Is he a guy that we think we could see on the field a.
Little bit more?
Savasse was drafted with the I mean at least is what they said after they drafted him, and they liked a couple of these things like his coverage abilities and his blitzing abilities. He was a really good blitzer at Pitt really had a number of sacks for an off ball linebacker, and there probably are going to be Todd bull sids. They gonna They're gonna have a lot of packages,
a lot of personal packages. So while kJ Britt could be in his eyes, a three down player, there's gonna be some games in some situations where they want to put other packages on the field with either one, two, or even three off ball linebackers, and that was where Sarvasier could come into play.
And then again we talked to about the fact that we heard from kJ Britt, but he talked about not just kind of the inside linebacker role, but another topic that's been interesting this offseason is the new kickoff rule and how much that's going to change things for everyone that's part of the special teams unit. So let's take a listen to what he had to say about that.
It's been weird. It's not a lot of running, so you know, it's kind of more of a it's gonna have to be a little bit more physical at the point of the tech. It's gonna be a lot of windows because the field is so wide. You know, it is one ball, and he catches with speed, and you know it's kind of stale, mate, So it's gonna be weird. You know it's gonna be something to Uh, we're gonna have to really get used to.
I just think this is gonna be fascinating to watch. I love when there ends up being a new wrinkle that just mixes everything up. And so tell me what you're gonna be watching, especially as mini camps about to happen, when training camp happens, to start getting an inkling for how this could impact a team, and as you build the roster.
Yeah, I mean to call it a new wrinkle is kind of an understatement. I mean we talked about this before. Rule changes in the NFL are usually more like gradual, like the way the different types of tackles are being taken out of the game or things like that. This is completely reimagining a play that's been the same in football for a long long time, kickball.
And that happens a lot every game. Yeah, this isn't something that might not happen in a game. It is inevitable multiple times every game.
So we've heard when we found out about the rule, and then we talked to I know, we had Jeff and I had our new Thomas mcgahey T mac on our show, our New Special Teams Coortner to ask them, you know, what's this going to look like, what's going to happen? What kind of personnel do you need? And basically they had ideas but didn't know for sure, and
we still don't know. But now we're starting to hear from the players and I've heard it not from naturally from kJ it was a good choice because he's a core special teamer the last few years, but from some other players around the league, and what is starting to look like to them. As you can hear from kJ there, it could change the type of personnelit you want on the field, and it could you know he's talking about.
I thought the interesting thing about what he was saying, for the most part, was thinking about how wide the field is. A normal kickoff, you usually kick it to a certain spot. All you know, the blackers kind of condensed there, the coveragemen kind of condensed there. Now you're starting a play where you need to defend the entire width of the field and you can't start running until that guy catches the ball and he's got a running
start before you do. And all he needs to do is find one gap that you didn't fill or you got blocked out of and he could be gone. So I think there's gonna be some big plays there and I think the players and I don't think he sounded like he was upset about it or frustrated. Was just learning, like what's this going to be?
Yeah, and it.
Could It's a real mystery what's going to be, but it could be really important.
I like that.
Well, another player we got a chance to hear from was Jammel Dean and hadn't really gotten to talk to him a whole lot since, you know, Carlton Davis left and now knowing that he's going to be expected to maybe step up even more alongside guys like Zion McCollum. What were the things you feel like you heard from Jammel and just in general are kind of expecting from him and looking forward.
To this year.
Yeah, he thinks that they have the opportunity to be a really good secondary. I mean, you think you got Antoine Winfield obviously maybe the best safety in the game, and now I got everybody so excited ut Jordan whitehead back. Everybody really is confident in Zion McCollum. And then you know, we know what Jamel can do when he's healthy and That's what coach was talking about, that he needs to figure out how to stay healthy for most of the season. But what Jameel was saying he needs to do is
he needs to catch the football. I don't know if this is just an estimate, but he said he thinks he dropped five interceptions last year, so you know, he's got to catch the ball when he has the opportunity. He knows that he wants to do the jugs gun, but he also wants to catch. It was funny because he was actually kind of sneaky funny and he.
Was very funny. Yeah, and I think sneaky funny is a good way.
To put it, like Todd Bowles in a way.
Yeah, which is why they're a little best right. You know they're talking each other. They got that sneaky funny Yep.
So Jamel he wants to do that, but he's like, I really want to catch passes from the quarterbacks. But he's like when he when he comes over to where the quarterbacks are throwing, and it's like he said something like, I'm the guy that shows up to the party and then everybody else leaves.
Well, I'm sure mentally they don't love the idea of throwing like, let's.
Not let them practice that.
But in any case, there's definitely room for for the whole entire secondary and if to make more plays on the ball. And if you think about it, the Bookers had a I think a plus eight interception or turn of a ratio last year, which was good. It was top ten.
That's good.
It could have been so much better if they just caught the ball because if you look at this, I mean the bucks that you have there the giveaways both fumbles and interceptions, and the takeaways both fumbles and interceptions. As you could see, the Bucks ring sixth and interceptions least fewest interceptions, second in fumbel recoveries, top half in number of fumbles lost. But it's the interceptions where they
were down in the bottom half of the league. And if you just change that one number you could really make a big difference.
That's interesting, all right.
And then also, I know offensive line is going to be an interesting one to look through this whole off season of as you look at OTA's mini camp into training camp, you got some new faces and you're going to inevitably have a new starter at least one position. And then Cody malc We always talk about the fact that year one to year two for any player tends to be a pretty big deal in terms of the progression you can make, particularly when you have a small
school guy making that big NFL adjustment. So what is it that we feel like we're going to be looking at with Cody Mauk and the indications where what this year could look like?
Yeah, I mean think about it. He came from North Dakota State and not only had to go jump from there to the NFL, but I had to change positions because he was playing left tackle and they put him at right guard and he played every single snap, So he obviously was doing well enough that they didn't want to replace him. He said his head was swimming when the season started, but he feels like he progressed every game and got better and better, and he says he
started to click. It started click for him about the same time in the second half when the whole team started to click. So now you have him his big goal and both coach said this and then he said it. I guess they discussed it with him and he has agreed and has acted on it is to get bigger and stronger. So he says he's doing a lot better job in the weight room and has added twelve to
fifteen pounds I'd be twelve to fifteen pounds of muscle. Wow, So he thinks, and the coach thinks, Coach Bulls thinks that he can make a big leap in his game. You know, we talk about that second year leap like he just did. But sometimes a lot of it's theoretical, and in a case like this, there's a specific thing that he's done to make him a better and more effective player, and he's already accomplished getting bigger and stronger, so let's see how that affects this game.
Interesting And then finally, I know we talked about you know, new kickoff rule, but there's also some other proposed changes coming down the pike. And it's always interesting talking to everybody about the off season program. It's changed so much, going back to where you know, you'll hear guys have a wall when I play.
There were three a days in training camp. Yeah, there really were.
Yes, there's already been a lot of changes, but there's discussion of even more changes potentially. So what are those discussions and what do the reaction seem to be so far to the.
Idea, right, So right now today the Bucks are going to hold the last OTA of this week. Then there'll be one more week of OTAs and then a mini campus mandatory. Then after that, as has men in the tradition, they have that one last lengthy break like six or seven weeks, where coaches and players can get away from the game a little bit for that period of time
before diving back in for training camp. What the NFLPA is apparently working on as a proposal, and I don't know what steps it would take to go from a proposal to actually happening. Usually when you have a change of something like this, it's part of a negotiation and it's like, Okay, we'll give you this, but you have to give us this. So I don't know how this is going to work or how soon it could work, but apparently they're interested and possibly it being as soon
as next year. It would do away with OTAs. So basically you're putting that break a little earlier and then you have a longer ramp up period before training camp. So basically be like taking whatever practice work you're allowed to do and putting it right before camp, which could mean uninterrupted activity from as far as maybe mid June or early July. Then you're done. You're in enturing camp in the season. So I don't know. My first reaction
to it isn't particularly positive. You know, I don't love the idea of NonStop from mid June even longer.
Yeah, I feel like that's where players are going to start saying, Okay, then we need a second by week thrown in somewhere, especially if.
Again they're still I already feel that way.
And yeah, they already feel that way. So then you add that they're going to be like, man, you've got to give us something. And again, especially if there's talks of ever adding another game someday, like it just starts getting to be with.
It all feels like negotiation.
Yeah, so I think that'll be interesting. But yeah, I think in some ways it makes sense of ramping up right there. I get that, but disagree, Yeah, I think, I mean, I don't.
I don't think I prefer it.
I think I agree that it would make the season feel that much longer.
I mean, you and I are joking a little bit, because what matters is how are vacation the players and coaches. But I kind of feel like the coaches wouldn't want to change the way it is now. I think they value that time right before, you know, that month or so before camp where they can get out and unplug.
For a one, Right, that'll be interesting to see. All right, Well that's going to do it for us on this edition of Bucks Insider. And again you heard that there's a little bit more OTAs left and then the mandatory mini camps is. Stay tuned for all that coverage right here on buccaneers dot com.