Welcome to Bucks Insider Live, presented by ticketmaster Casey Phillips here a senior writer and editor Scott Smith. We were going to come to you at a normal time and then the dang team had to supplant us with their press conference and practice early.
Yeah, which I guess the players are.
Probably they were probably okay with you. We were probably the only people upset.
We're here now.
We're here now and this is our first time doing back the normal type of show. We had been doing an all training camp. We even went up to New Jersey for joint practices. Now we are back in sort of the regular season for air conditioning. Big fans of that. So now we have some pretty big news to talk about since our last show. Very handy for them to make this announcement.
Just for us. I'm sure it was Tuesday morning. Yep.
So we now know QB one Baker Mayfield. If you hadn't heard, I imagine everyone's heard. Tell me the thoughts on announcement.
The funny thing about it was, how often in a coach's career does he have the opportunity to name a starting quarterback from a QB competition. Doesn't happen that often and you would have thought maybe there'd be a little more great to it. And I was just like Baker's the one, kyle'son two.
It was about ten words, period.
But I mean it was even kind of like a not a direct question even about that.
It was like the question.
Actually with stage is I know you're not close to naming a starting quarterback, but what he's like, Baker's the one.
So that did a good job.
I'd probably enjoyed getting to do it that way. I think that's very much his personality arrive.
And I know, and i've I've saw before her, beforehand and after the announcement that there are plenty of people out there that thought this was a foregone conclusion when we signed Baker Mayfield, that this competition wasn't a real competition. And I got to tell you that is not the case. This was a real competition. Kyle Trask did very well. Coach says he is improved by leaps and bounds, which makes you feel good about your depth because you want
that whole room to be strong. But he said Baker Mayfield really just had a little bit better grasp on the offense, and he also has done well so Baker earned it. He said what you would think he would say in his press conference. He's like, you know, I'm not I expected to start, which is what you want, right, So he also understands that these opportunities mean a lot.
And today when we weren't allowed to do our show in time because the coaches and players were being so rude, Dave Kannalis said that that Baker he can tell, he can feel, or I think he said he can sense how seriously Baker is taking this opportunity and how Baker understands the weight of this situation. And so this is a big deal for him, obviously, to get his career
back on track. Former first overall pick a great year in twenty twenty, led the Browns to the playoffs, and he obviously had some injuries after that.
Obviously wants to get back to that form.
And you know this, this is actually the second time in a row that the Buccaneers have solved their quarterback situation by signing a veteran free agent.
You know, Tom Brady.
I was just saying, I think we've heard it the other one.
Hopefully this one goes as well as that one. That would be pretty amazing if it did, but that's really not all that common actually.
In Bucks history.
This is just the sixth time in the entire Bucks history that the Bucks have signed a veteran starting a veteran quarterback and named him the Week one and started.
That same year.
That's incredible happening that off And the first one was actually Brad Johnson and O one and that year went well, and then they won the Super Bowl next year, and then Jeff Garcia and seven that year also went well, and then the others were Byron left which and Josh McCown and those weren't particularly good seasons, and then Tom Brady.
Wow, and that's.
Interesting, and so what do you think is going to be some of the things that that Baker will bring to this offense are the ways they want to use him specifically yea.
And they talked a lot during this competition about how Baker and Kyle were bolting well, but they were not the exact same sort of quarterbacks.
And while Kyle actually moved around pretty well.
That's one of the real strong tools in Baker Mayfield's toolbox that he can make throws on the run, he can make throws off platform, and one thing that he did really, really well in the twenty twenty season that we talked about, And if you want more details on this, there's a really good story on buccaneers dot Com from Brianna Dix.
Was really hoping you were going to be like Prima Scott's maan.
Yeah, from really brilliant No, my colleague Brianna, who did all the research and even talked to Thad Lewis, the quarterbacks coach, and got these stats from SIS And this was in twenty twenty. He was the only quarterback in the entire league who threw on bootleg plays. Threw eleven or more passes that went twenty yards in the air downfield. So this isn't just a fake a handoff, bootleg this way and throw a little check down to the tight end.
This is getting the ball downfield on boot legs, which is I mean, he had the best numbers in the league on that play. And what's surprising about it is most coaches don't take right handed quarterbacks and bootleg them out to the left. They'll they'll have him fake the run to the left on the zone, get all the defense moving in that direction, and then spin back around to.
The right side.
But actually Baker was really really good. He did six times, was five of six for just really good stats on bootlegs to the left.
So this is the kind of thing.
We haven't seen this obviously in the preseason because they don't want to show anything yet. But I think that's an aspect of the offense that obviously Tom Brady was the goat, but they weren't running boot.
Legs right, so it was not bootleg Brady.
No, So there's gonna be it's gonna be interesting, I think.
Okay, and then one of his top targets, I think that it is going to be interesting to watch Trey Palmer. This guy just we keep having to talk about him. Draft pick but not a super high draft pick.
But he is playing like one.
He is playing like a guy that is going to make a case to be on the field a lot in preseason too. It seems like he'd be a great compliment to guys like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.
Yeah, and you're right. He was a six round draft pick and the Bucks were surprised he was still on the board because he's really really fast, and he's got good size and he had great production last year and usually those three things together will get you drafted a little higher that bucks like, he's still on the board. So they already had two six round picks they wanted to use for something else, so they traded a fifth round pick next year just to get the pick in
order to be able to take Trey Palmer. And he obviously has done great two really nice I mean acrobatic touchdown catches, and Yeah, the thing about it is there's an opportunity for him there because Russell Gage unfortunately is out for the season, and I don't know how that's all going to work because I don't know if he's a slot guy or not.
And I think they wanted to run necessarily a one for one swap.
Yeah he's really yeah, exactly, But I still think he's done enough to warrant a prominent role. When you talk about the fact that you have Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and then behind that you don't really have a lot of experienced guys and there's some really talented guys there, but you don't know yet. So I think there's a really good opportunity for Trey to have, you know, a prominent role of some kind. It's hard to say what at this point, maybe Chris Cottin goes in the slot
and he plays outside in trips. But yeah, as you see here, he's one of only four players that have two touchdown passes. And I think I messed up this graphic because that last player there should be for the Browns, but it still But the other two are Ravens and the very young players, and that means three of the four players that have two touchdown catches this preseason will be on the field here Saturday night.
And speaking of Saturday night, first of all, I love that they have now gone to just the one cutdown, so all your preseason games you have the chance to watch anyone and everyone on the team, and I think it elevates the stakes for all of it, knowing that you still have all the different roster positions you know, potentially up for grabs, not only starting roles, backup roles, all of that. And one that we've talked a lot about this off season and preseason is the idea of
the slot corner position. What that's going to look like in Nickel and a guy d Delaney that has been with the team for a while hasn't actually been one of the more household names, but has really kind of made a name for himself his preseason as a guy trying to make a case for that spot or the roster in general, and different corner areas well.
Not only has d Delaney sort of made a name for himself here, but I think I made up a nickname for him. Oh boy, yeah, Because what is really what the coaches always talked about him, was really stood out about him and why he's found a home here the last two years after bouncing around.
A little bit, is they love his versatility.
And he has actually played in the regular season at three different spots slot corner, outside corner, and safety, and he's played a significant number of six Look at this, I mean in one year, you played one hundred nine steps, one hundred ninety steps at outside corner and a little bit in the slot. He played a lot in the slot and a decent amount at safety, and so that's three different positions.
So I called him three D. I like that. That's pretty good.
We actually had him on our Salty Ducks podcast yesterday and I threw out that nickname, asked him if he liked it, and he played along. He probably doesn't care, but he played a lot, so I'm going to try to make a stick. But yeah, Dee Delaney really has to me. There's nobody nobody's other than the starters. Nobody's really a lock. But I would have a hard time seeing him not make this roster just because of how much he brings.
And he's also really really.
Good on special teams and he's been playing a lot of gunner and so that's a very important position. So he just brings so much to the team. And you're right, he's not a household name and we don't talk about him a lot. That's kind of why I wanted to bring him up.
Yeah, that's going to be interesting, all right. Thecals of this just top things you're kind of excited to watch in the preseason game on Saturday.
So earlier today, Cam Gill was talking at the podium and he pointed out that all of the outside linebackers are going to play, Like Shack and Joe are going to start.
They're all going to play.
And we have heard from Coach Bulls on numerous occasions during trading camp in the preseason that this is going to be the hardest position for them to cut down just because there's so much talent there from top to bottom, including young guys, two draft picks in Josierramiers and Yayad Yabi, and also an undrafted rookie that they're liking a lot in Marquise Watts. So there's, like I said, talent from top to bottom. I think there's maybe nine of them, and they probably would keep five.
I would think it the most.
And so Kim himself was saying cam Gill, who had one point five sacks in the first game, he was saying he's really looking forward to seeing all of those guys playing Solemy.
I want to see who really stands out from that group.
All right, Well, that's going to do it for us on bucks Insadur Live. Thanks as always for joining us. Enjoy that final preseason game, and we'll be back here next week to talk about roster cutdowns. We're gonna know who's on the team by the next time we do the show, so we'll see then