Rooney Rule & Rookie Roles | Bucs Insider

chance to start submitting some of those. Uh, Scott, I just I know that you know, there's not a whole lot of um news this time of year because of the fact that we're not getting to have the O T S and minicamp. You know, what, what are some of the things that would normally be happening right about now? And then what are something anything I know that we

at least had at least the Rooney Rule update. That's that's about the only newsworthy thing that has has been able to happen reacently in terms of the league meetings. So tell us a little bit about the Rooney Rule and then just overall what this time of year would would normally be Like, yeah, I'll start with the second part. There we would be in the midst of o t a s right now organized team activity days. We'll be

in phase three of the off season. The first phase is basically just some basically just workouts a little bit on the field, but only with strength coaches. And second phase you can you can do stuff with individual units, but you can't do receivers against defensive backs that kind of thing. And in the third phase is very much like real practices, just with no pads or contact and uh.

And there's just a certain amount of time that the players can be in the building during the day, you know, a certain number of hours, and you usually get fourteen of those O t a s to spread out as you prefer. Usually you do three a week, three week, maybe one or two weeks with four a week, and it all culminates in a three day mandatory mini camp, which the Buccaneers usually do in mid June, just to

cap the whole thing. And the other thing that would have already happened is we would have had a rookie mini camp too, and that's always an exciting time to see all those draft picks for the first time. And as I think we mentioned the other day, one thing that's missing out this year specifically that I don't know how it's going to be replaced. Is that rookie mini camp where you have thirty undrafted guys that are that

don't have contracts but are there on trial contracts. Every single year without fail, that produces two or three or four or five guys that get signed, like Adam Humphreys as the example. We often use Clifton Smith from a little further back, guys that for some reason or another didn't even get signed right after the draft, but you're trying to fill out your mini camps. You bring him in and hez, hey, this guy is actually pretty good. He's we like him a little more than this guy

we signed right after the draft. And so you make some moves. So obviously none of that is going to happen. It seems like and and we're all just crossing your fingers that will be in training camp. Um. As for the Rooney Rule, I think so far, the main thing that they've done is to remove the restriction that allow a team to block a candidate from uh interviewing for

a coordinator job. So if you have a guy who's your special teams coach or your running backs coach and some other team wants him, to UH interview for a coordinator job. You can say no, or at least you could have, and now you can't. So that's just another opportunity. That's another avenue to try to give guys opportunities that they might not have been able to get yet. Some other aspects that they've been talking about, including some UH

draft pick conversation rules that's been tabled for now. UM, I don't know how it's all gonna shake out. You know, I've even seen Tony Dunge obviously this is a topic that's important to him. I've seen him talking about it, and he doesn't love every aspect of what he's seen proposed. But I think he says and I would agree the the idea here, the concept of what they're trying to accomplish is good. They are they do not believe that what WOULD the League has done so far has done

enough to give minority candidates opportunities. And that's all we're talking about here, is trying to give every body who's deserving an opportunity, And to me, that's a good goal to have. Yeah percent, All right, we can dive into some of these questions now, Uh, you know, I know that basically The Bucks offense is what's gotten so much attention this offseason, for very good reasons and understandable reasons. But Daniel ask, can we talk about how good the

defense will be this year? Well, we certainly hope. So they were very good down the stretch in the second half. Obviously, the run defense was good the entire year, ended up being the best in the league and statistically the best run defense the Buccaneers have ever had, and you have virtually everybody back that was important to that. The only free agent that got away from the front was Karl Massi, and um, you know, I'm glad he's getting an opportunity

in in Las Vegas. But otherwise that front is intact with domin Kan Sue, a guy that I think is going to get a lot of attention now with more people looking at the Bucks. Vidavea. Will Goldston is a very good run stopper. Um, I don't see any reason. I mean, it's it's a little aggressive to bet that the Bucks would once again have the best run de offensively,

but it should be good. The past defense was not good at all early on, and it's not in retrospect all that surprise, and given how many young guys that were being mixed in there, and uh, they jelled. We got to talk to Sean Murphy Bunting last week. He was a guy that really came on at the end of the year, as well as Jamal Deane and Carlton Davis,

and uh, they really jelled down the stretch. And then you add Antoine Winfield Junior to that mix, and he's the kind of all over the field piece that I think Todd Bowles will enjoy employing in a lot of different ways. A playmaker, a guy who finds the football. Um, you know, it certainly looks on paper like all the pieces are there for that defense to take that momentum they had at the last at the end of last

year and and really move forward. And and honestly, that and the and resigning all those guys is I mean, that shows you that this team believes that that defense is good. That's why they went out and made the aggressive move with Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski because they feel like they have all the pieces in place to be a playoff contending team here and the defense is a big part of that. Yeah, that's the great point. It was Actually the next question was gonna be from

Darrell and he asked what role will Winfield Junior play? Um? So, and then I saw that we'd also had a question about Justin Evans and if we know his situation, so why don't we just kind of talk about maybe the safety's overall? Um, I know you talked a little bit about Winfield junior there, but that safety position and um, if you know, looking at who might be potential starters back up, just what that position could look like? Is

it a position of strength? Now? You know, how how confident do you think that this team is going to be and who they have back there? Well, starting with Justin Evans. This that's another thing that this unusual offseason is making a more difficult topic to really answer very well. It's around this time when we'd be starting to get some answers on Justin and and how ready he is if he's already on the field at this point or if we're talking about training camp at this point, and

then you feel a little less confident. Obviously, for the last two seasons, the foot injuries have been an issue. We saw before that though that they're they're glimmers, they're a playmaker. He's a very talented and athletic guy. I

wouldn't want to write him off yet. Even though the Buccaneers in the two seasons that Bruce arians has been here in the two drafts, have drafted a safety in the second and third rounds, obviously they felt that there was a need for more there and and I just think you can't know if Justin Evans is going to

be a part of this picture or not. If he's completely healthy, I would expect him to come in and compete very hard to get his spot back, because he looked, at least in the first season and a half like he would become a long term fixture at safety for the Bucks and a playmaking type of guy. But we have to see on that one. But having added uh Winfield, and you know we did also resign Andrew Adams earlier in the offseason, and he started eleven games last year.

So you have Jordan Whitehead who started four teen games. I think you have basically the two incumbents back. But I don't think you draft Antoine Winfield in the middle of the second round if you don't think there's a very good chance that he's probably you want him to start. If not at least he's playing a significant role. We tend to think of okay, to safety spots, there's only two guys that will get on the field. But that's

not necessarily the case in today's NFL. A lot of teams employ three safeties in different ways, especially if they have a versatile guy, you know, like a Tyranne Matthew or somebody like that. If they have a versatile guy that they feel comfortable, maybe in the nickel or as a as a nickel linebacker, even just a lot of different roles that a versatile guy can fill, you can end up at times with three safeties on the field

in various sub packages. So you know, I would be lying if I told you I knew how that was all gonna shake out. I just do think that they have, especially if Justin Evans is healthy, there's a lot of possibilities there, I don't you know. I mean, there's there's enough pieces there to make for a pretty exciting safety position. Yeah, yeah, that's that's very true. I think that's gonna be really

an interesting battle to kind of see play out. And um Michael asked, how much do you think Devin white Um improves as a leader this year, and then I'd just like to add on overall, how much you think that he can improve in general or e know, just what his role will be now that he's not the rookie. Yeah, I don't know if you improve as a leader in

his case. I think basically the point is this is a very outgoing, outspoken guy, very emotional, you know, very up, very energetic on the field, and he came in with the reputation and the history of being a really good leader. I think he was a team captain as a sophomore at l s U uh and so. But the point is, as a rookie, you don't just step right in and say, hey, Lavante moved aside in Dominicans through Hey I got this.

You don't just be the leader right away. But if you have those qualities and you're always on the field and you're a middle linebacker so you're calling plays, uh, You're you're gonna be a leader. It's just going to develop. And I would suspect that that emerges this year. I mean, at this point, nobody's gonna be looking at Devon going hey, hey, Rickie, you know zip it. You know, at this point he probably feels like a leader already, and so he'll just

naturally fit into that role. If there was a second part to that question, I don't I don't remember it. Yeah, well, I just wanted to hear how you feel like his what his role could be, even just outside of a leadership role, of just his his role on the field. What we can expect from him just play wise this year. Yeah, I mean, barring injury, which you would say about any player, he's going to be on the field. Virtually snaps him and Lavante David. There's just no reason to take either

one of them off the field. The thing that I think you could see developing his game a little bit more is maybe some more going after the quarterback. That's a We saw that he has the cover abilities that he can. You know, he's a tackler, can make plays all over the field. The rangy guy finds the football as you saw it with his fumble recoveries. But maybe a little more usage of him in uh in blitzing capacities. Okay, Um,

several people asked this, which I thought was interesting. Um, Ronnie asked, and he's in Scotland watching, which is great your you know, your native land. Of course, Scotland. YEA, thank you. I'll be here all week. Uh, he said, what is the likelihood of getting Clay Matthews signed for a year following the recent rumors? So just it's funny. We had three or four people I saw that asked

about Clay Matthews. That's interesting And actually I I like the question because I was looking at him just the other day because this is the point where you start looking. And I also get mailed back questions about are there any other free agents out there that the Buccaneers mic go after now in this last period before training camp. And I understand connecting those dots completely, because, um, if you look at a position that could use some help

in terms of experienced guys, outside linebacker is one of them. Uh. You know, you got your You're absolutely thrilled with your duo JPP and Shack, But after that, you don't really have anybody with Karl Masson no longer here that has much experience at all. There's some there's some interesting guys there, Coasin Daniels and guys like that, and Anthony Nelson, who I'm betting they anticipate having a bigger role in his

second season. Um, you know, he's kind of held back by injuries last year, but there's nobody really proven there, so it's an easy it's an easy, you know, connecting the dots kind of thing. And Claim Matthews. He was released by the rams um and so you know they let him go. But he actually was pretty productive last year in from the number of snaps that he had. I can't remember exactly, but I think he had about

eight sacks. I can understand that. I think it all comes down to if you're gonna ad a guy, whether it be Claim Matthews or anybody else that's still out there, I think it comes down to, you know, how much does it cost. There's not a lot of cap space. As I've said before, I trust our guys to be able to create cap space if they need to, but

you also have to sign all your draft picks. Um. I just don't think there's another big contract, really big contract out there that that the Bucks are gonna add. But if you can get a guy at a good rate who can really help you in a in a sub role, yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me. Okay, this is I think it's Alexander or Alexandre. I'm not entirely sure. Uh, they're watching from Brazil and wanted to know when you guys are gonna have a new Salty

Dogs episode. Oh. I actually know who this is. I think I don't know if his last name on there, but I think it's not something into something like that. Um this I know who this fan is because he sent us Salty Dog questions in the past and he's from Brazil. UM, so appreciate that. I want to obviously a really big Bucks fan. Um. Yeah, we've talked about it. I think we're gonna do it soon. We have a guest that's agreed to do it. We just haven't hit upon a time yet. But yeah, we want to do that.

I mean might as well. You know what else are we gonna do? You only so many times a day I can want my dog. Your dog's exhausted this point, like please leave me alone. Literally has lost like fifteen to twenty pounds. That's amazing. Um j R. Asked how much do you believe the improvements on offense will improve our defense? Well? Yeah, I mean anytime that your offense is is better at two things that the Bucks would like to get better at, not turning the ball over.

You know your defense. Our defense got put a lot of really bad situations last year with the league high forty one giveaways. That obviously would make thinks much better for our defense if you cut that number saying half um and then if the if the if the offense is a methodical and stays on the field a lot um, that helps the defense. But that wasn't really a problem aside from the turnovers. We were able to move the ball last year. So I think basically just it's a

matter of fewer giveaways. Okay, Dennis asked you we move Tristan to left tackle at some point, Well, that's something that that he has that adds to his value of that adds to the value of that draft pick that he has that capability depending on what happens down the road. I personally think the Buccaneers are locked in with Donovan Smith, or at least this year and next year. That's what his contract covers. Uh. I wouldn't be surprised if it

goes on beyond that. I sound like a broken record when this topic comes up, but Bruce arians said it again. I think right after the draft, he likes our offensive lineman and he likes Donovan Smith. He thinks Donovan had his best year last year and that adding Tom Brady to the mix is just gonna light even more of a fire under everybody but him included too, you know,

to take his game to even another level. You know, I think the Bucks really like the idea of Donovan Smith and Tristan Worse as their bookends and and nowadays, I mean, I know we're conditioned to believe that the left tackle position is way more important than the right tackle position, but you know it, if you look at the contracts that guys like Jack Conklin and Brian blag are getting, I think, in terms of what the league and league decision makers think, there's been a narrowing of

gap in the importance of those two positions. So, um, we don't need to move Tristan Worse to the left side to make the thirteenth overall pick worthwhile picking him, But the fact that he could conceivably do that in the future, depending on what you do with Dinomon Smith or anybody else, definitely adds value for him. And yeah, I think he could handle it for sure. And close Bernard asked, who do you see as our second back, Vaughan or Dry oh, I would assume it's Vaughan. Yeah,

you know, Darry. Darry was your third down back last year, and a lot of that is because you know, Darry is a guy that coaches love. He does think the little things right. He was good at past protection. You know, there were times when Ronald Jones struggled a little bit in that and that's why he wasn't all the time a three down back. But when we drafted Keishan, um, I think Jason led I think it was Jason might have been Bruce said, yeah, we we want to see if he can be a three down guy and and

maybe compete with Darry for that third down role. I already think that Keshan would be the guy that you would spell Ronald Jones with. You know the way ron Jones and Peyton Barber split carries last year and now I think would be Ronald and Keishan before it be Ronald and Dry. Dry really only got to let and carries last year, and a lot of those were around the goal line when you were in like a hurry

up package, you know what I'm saying. So, uh, he wasn't really feat heard in the running game in any other way other than that, he caught thirty five passes, but um, he wasn't really much featured in the running game. And I think they definitely expect Keshan to get a good check of a carry, So Keisha would be your second back, I'm sure, okay, And then I can just answer this. Nicholas asked, Casey, when can you get the O line and tight ends together for a group chat?

I already did, so there's a love one. I can answer it that way. So up on the Bucks website already now and on the app if you want to go look at that. SEEO. We've done Specialists and tight Ends and O line and um Trember which ones have already aired. We've already got a couple more that we've shot that just haven't aired yet. So uh, stay tuned

for some more of those group chats for sure. So thanks to all of you guys for being with us today, thanks for all of those amazing questions, and Scott, thank you as always, and we will see you next time here on Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Life. Then