Rojo's Status & Playoff Scenarios

a little bit. And as always, if you want to submit a question to us, you can do it in the comments section of the live Facebook video, so we know that takes people a few minutes while we give

them a chance to do that. I figured we'd start with some of the recent news that Ronald Jones has been activated from the COVID list, and I wanted to hear from you what don't we know about that, plus, of course not forgetting his finger injury, what it can mean about his availability when he might play, and now that we've seen for net Keyshawn Vaughan in there just

that whole big picture of what all this could look like. Well, yeah, since he's been activated from the list, he can now return to practice, which was the first one would be today in about an hour. And uh that's the key because even though he's now available the team has yet to have in practice since he had the fractured finger and had the surgery to have some pens inserted in there.

And we saw that uh that Chris Godden was able to play with a similar injury after missing one game, and Ronald Jones has now missed two weeks because of this day on the COVID list. But it's there's a difference between playing wide receiver and playing running back. You might think it's actually a tougher injury for a receiver to play through because he has to catch the ball, but um god, one showed pretty easily that he can catch the ball with the splint thing he had on

his hand. For the running back, the issue is can you get hit on that hand? Because you're gonna get hit a lot if you're getting a lot of carries up the middle and through the pack. If he gets hit, is he gonna be able to hold onto the football? And that's what Bruce Arians means when he frequently says, will Ronald Jones be able to protect himself? So they're gonna try to figure that out in practice this week.

I'm not sure the mechanism of how you figure that out because You're clearly not gonna hit him in the hand. That wouldn't be very smart. So they're gonna have to figure that out somewhere or another to see if he can play in in the interim. Uh, Leonard Fournett has done a decent jobs. He scored three touchdowns. He's definitely got some tough yards. His total yards through the two

games or eighty three, which wasn't a huge amount. We did see a nice little extent there from Keshawn Vaughan in Detroit, which was encouraging and makes you want to see a little more from him. You do wonder, though, with any of the accomplishments in Detroit, you have to take them with a little bit of grain of salt because that was such a depleted team. So I think the team would be ecstatic to have a fully functional

Ronald Jones back as the lead back. Okay, And we had a couple different people asking about Mike Evans getting the potential thousand yards being the first player ever to do that for seven seasons in a row, and people asking do you think he'll get it? And then is there a risk of maybe sitting a lot of the starters kind of what's the Wayne wanting to get him the record versus who you playing and what there is

still to play for. Just to be clear on that record, it's the first seven seasons to start a player's career. There have been other players like Jerry Rice and had seven year in a row, but to start a player's career might could be the first one. Right now, he and Randy Moss are the only two that have done it six times in a row to start their career. And about three weeks ago, it didn't look very likely he needed an average about a hundred ten yards a

game or more. And uh, you know, since he'd had I think at that point two yard games this season, you didn't think, well, that's likely to happen. But since then against at Landing got about one tin and last week he went off for and that hasn't met nine six and obviously forty yards away, you're very much arranged. I mean, that's potentially one big play. Uh, it'll be harder to get the ball downfield as consistently and easily as we did against Detroit then against Atlanta. Atlanta's past

defense is not great, but Detroit was Brilli in shambles. Um, so we'll see I think, first of all, in terms of starting and resting players, I think Bruce arians made it pretty clear that at least at the beginning, they're gonna play their guys and try to win. And you know, he said it had nothing to do with who we end up where we end up going in around one of the playoff us although I'm sure a lot of us are thinking about that and the difference between the

five and six seed. To him, he said, it's a pride issue for the team, and then eleven and five is a lot better than ten and six, and that the fifth seed is a lot better than the six seeds, So they're gonna try to win. Now, could they start resting players depending upon how the game is going, Yes, I believe that's very possible, particularly if we can get

a big lead. But I think at the beginning, you're gonna see see the guys play, and I think they are going to make an effort to get the ball to Mike govns well, and it's perfect that you brought up the idea of getting that seed. Mitch asked, can you explain who we might play if we are the

fifth or the sixth seed? And we'll go ahead and give a disclaimer that after this we're gonna be shooting our Path to the Playoffs video that we've been doing every week, where we'll dive into this a lot more in depth, but if you want at least just kind of give a little quick cliff notes version before we do that. Well, the funny part about this is there are still with one week to go, and the Bucks

can only be five or six seed. You think you'd be close to locked in, but there are actually six different possible destinations the Bucks could go to if they get that five seat, which they will do so by winning, or even if they don't win, by having the MS lose, then they're gonna go to the in the home of the MCS champion, which will be Washington if Washington wins, but if Washington loses, it will be whoever wins between Dallas and the New York Giants, So there's three possible

destinations there. If the Buccaneers lose and the Rams win, now you're the sixth seed and you're playing at the three seed, and even though that's most likely to be Seattle, it could also still be Green Bay in New Orleans. So there's a lot still to be decided not so much for the Buccaneers, but the whole picture around the Buccaneers. All right, uh, And I thought this was pretty funny. Mitch asked me, who makes me laugh or has surprised me most during interviews, which I thought was very funny.

I feel like that's something we haven't ever talked about on this show. Um. So yeah, I feel like this year in particular, UM, I have to say Gronk because yeah, I mean it's he's exactly everything that you think he would be. And I still remember the first event that I was doing with him, and it's weird because all these people have just kind of only talked to over zoom. We still haven't really gotten to do in person things. So before an event, you know, we're sitting here kind

of time how the event is going to go. It's like a live stream thing and we're on zoom like this, and all of a sudden, he just starts like disappearing out of the frame, and I was like, what is happening?

And then he's coming back, and he was in a recliner, like an automatic recliner chair, and he would just all of a sudden, like as I start to be like Okay, here's what we need to do, like me, and he just disappeared, and I was like, this is incredible, and all of the interviews and everything, like he has just been so fun and so funny and and even when he's miked up that there's not a moment that he doesn't seem to be just having the time of his life in whatever he's doing. So, yes, I think that

would be my answer for this year setting. I laughed out loud at the Robot dance, Oh my gosh, that was amazing. Yeah, which apparently, um, he actually thought of it as more of a Frankenstein and yeah, so I heard that he was calling it either the Gronkenstein or the Robin Stein or something, which I thought was pretty Yeah. I liked that a lot. Um. Okay, this is a good one that we didn't really get a chance to

talk about last week when the news came out. Matt asked who was the biggest snub for the Pro Bowl in your opinion, and he gave the options in his mind of Brady Ali, Marpett, Tristan Worth's, Lavonte, David or Devin White all the above in a in a career. Since it's Lavante David. The fact that he's only made one is amazing to me. But at this point it's

not at all surprising. And it's a little bit tough for him and Devin White because there are only two two spots and there's not gonna be any replacements at inside linebacker, and they're kind of both probably stealing votes from each other a little bit. So it went to Fred Warner of San Franz and Bobby Wagner, who makes it every year of Seattle. So that's just a tough

go um. You know, it's hard to ignore Devin White simply because if you're voting on numbers, there's not really a player out there that has a combination of stats that Devin White has. With his hundred forty tackles, his nine sacks, I think something like fifteen quarterback hits. He's got some pass breakups, some fumble forced and recovered. He's got the full compliment of stats that look like a

pro bowler. So that one's a little tough. And the one that isn't surprising, just because it's really hard for offensive lineman good traction is Ali Marpett. I mean, I think all of us here know that he was playing at a Pro Bowl level before he went on into reserve with the concussion, and since he's been back, he's made a big difference. You know, they're all they're all snubs of some sort, but I think Devon and Ali

stand out the most. To me. Yeah, I think the Ali would have been my answer if he hadn't missed games. I think that I I tend to see where unless it is someone that is just like always going to win the popularity contest because of their name recognition, if a player misses very much time, it tends to hurt them a lot in the Pro Bowl. So if he hadn't missed those games, and yeah, I think he would

be my top answer. I do think Devon is a big one because what we've talked about in the past of why we felt like Lavonte didn't make it was because we're like, well, with linebackers, it tends to be the people vote based on sacks, you know, and inside linebackers when he's having to kind of compete against your in the past, these outside linebackers on a three four, But now Devin has nine sacks and so that sort

of went like that, that blew that argument out. Of the water of why our inside linebackers don't always get the recognition. So now I'm just like, well, yeah, I think I don't know what you can do about it. To be honest with you, we're just gonna be on the soapbox and for next year and try even harder. And asked for Tom Brady, I don't I know Aaron Rodgers is one of them, and I guess Drew Brees probably and they both had very good years. And Kyler Murray.

I think Kyler Murray was really I think Kyler Murray is the third pick, and he was really helped by some really phenomenal and exciting games around mid season, and that's what's fresh and in the voters minds. If you look at the if you look at their numbers side by side and how their teams have done, I think you blindly, if you just blindly looked at the numbers of the team records, you probably picked Tom Brady over Kyler Murray, so that that probably could be considered a

snub at this point. Um, but Tim's bendo I think fourteen of them, so he'll probably be okay, okay, uh yeah, I think he'll probably He's probably not up crying at night about about this stat. Um all right, Riley said, if Rojo's injury goes through the wild card, do you think we see more of Vaughan or for net on the goal line? Yeah, you'd probably still do for net

on the goal line. I mean, if there's anything that he has definitely proved that he's very good at so far with the Bucks, it's punching it in from one or two yards out. I mean, that's worked, so why go away from it? Uh? I think it's be more likely to see Vaughan taking away some of his carries between the twenties, and Kevin asked, how much do you think we'll be seeing Scottie Miller anymore? And how all

that has been shaking out of who gets what targets? Yeah, I wish I could remember how many snaps he had in this last game. Um, you know, the story is pretty much established at this point. He was dealing with some injuries that had limited him hip and groin injuries that it made it hard for him to really be at full speed. And in the meantime, the Bucketeers signed Antonio Brown and he's pretty much stepped right into that third receiver role. And that hasn't changed week to week

to week. So I think we're pretty set and established with the top three receivers, and you run that eleven package more than anything else, and Scotty gets sometime in that, but not as much as Antonio Brown. So now we're talking about different packages that specifically a Scottie in them, or four receiver packages, and there's less snaps for that.

So they obviously have some place for him, and we've seen that in recent weeks, but I don't see his playing time going through the roof for the rest of this year. All right, Well, that is going to do it for us on this edition of Buccaneers Insider Live

presented by Miller Lte. Thanks as always for joining us and for those great questions, and don't forget after this we're gonna be shooting our path to the playoffs, and stay tuned to that to hear all the details of all the myriad options that are still out there of who the Bucks might face depending on which seed they get. So we'll see you next time.