Speaker 1: Um, hello Buccaneer fans. It is not our normal time
Speaker 1: for Buccaneers inside our Live, but I'm pretty sure people
Speaker 1: can probably take a guess as to why we have
Speaker 1: made an exception and are coming to you live on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday morning. Casey Phillips. Here
Speaker 1: was senior writer and editor Scott Smith, and yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: when the goat retires, you got to spring into action.
Speaker 1: So we are here to do a very special Buccaneers
Speaker 1: inside our Live to answer all of your Brady related questions. So,
Speaker 1: as always, if you have a question for us, you
Speaker 1: can head on over to the Buccaneers Facebook page and
Speaker 1: you can leave them in the comments section. We're gonna
Speaker 1: give people a little bit of time to do that.
Speaker 1: And so of course, let's just start with initial reactions
Speaker 1: to finding out that he is retiring and your thoughts
Speaker 1: on his announcement and knowing that he is no longer
Speaker 1: going to be the leader of this Buccaneers franchise. Well,
Speaker 1: it was a little hard to be surprised, frankly, since
Speaker 1: this kind of leaked on Saturday and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of back and forth. But when you cold through
Speaker 1: everything that was being reported and what you knew and
Speaker 1: what you suspected. It did seem like that was probably
Speaker 1: going to be the case, that he was just waiting
Speaker 1: until after the weekend so as not to kind of
Speaker 1: step on the big day on Sunday of football. So
Speaker 1: I find it got at all surprising. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's a sad day for the franchise a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's bitter sweet. Uh. It would have been nice if
Speaker 1: he had played for one more year. Obviously was still
Speaker 1: playing at a very high level last year. But I
Speaker 1: think you can, I mean think the main emotion is
Speaker 1: just gratitude that these two years happened at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: Jason Light and Bruce Arians decided to look what was
Speaker 1: behind door number two back in uh February and March
Speaker 1: of two thousand twenty, and they found Tom Brady there,
Speaker 1: which even two years later is almost a little hard
Speaker 1: to believe. But it happened, and so did I so
Speaker 1: did a Super Bowl championship and then the Division title
Speaker 1: and a thirteen and four record and another advancement to
Speaker 1: the Division Title game and incredible comeback in Tom Brady's
Speaker 1: last game. It was a great ride. I wish it
Speaker 1: was going on for at least one more year. But
Speaker 1: Tom Brady has to do what is right for him,
Speaker 1: you know, That's what this is about. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: are so thankful for the time that he gave to
Speaker 1: us and it led to a Super Bowl ring and
Speaker 1: some incredible things, and it's it was wonderful a while
Speaker 1: it lasted, and um, yeah, it is. It is bittersweet,
Speaker 1: of course it is. It is sad, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know, we all knew this was gonna
Speaker 1: end at some point and now it's exciting to see
Speaker 1: the future of where the team is going to go.
Speaker 1: So again, if you're just tuning in, we are taking
Speaker 1: all of your Brady related questions on the Buccaneers Facebook
Speaker 1: page in the comment section underneath the live video. So
Speaker 1: of course we know the vast majority of them are
Speaker 1: going to be about who's going to replace him, So
Speaker 1: first of all, let's start with the guys that are
Speaker 1: on the roster and what you think of of the
Speaker 1: three of them and what the potential is for the
Speaker 1: role they could each have moving forward. So but three
Speaker 1: year including Ryan Griffin, right, yes, yeah, which is also
Speaker 1: we can discuss the whole free agency implications of a
Speaker 1: lot of things. Well, both Both Blaine Gabert and Ryan
Speaker 1: Griffin are do to become free agents, so the only
Speaker 1: one under contract right now is Kyle Trask. Of course,
Speaker 1: your second round pick from this past season. And I
Speaker 1: don't think you take a second round draft pick and
Speaker 1: uh don't at least have an idea that he might
Speaker 1: become your starter. I don't think the sixty four pick
Speaker 1: in the draft says this guy is definitely gonna be
Speaker 1: a long term starter, but I think it says we
Speaker 1: think there's a shot this is going to happen. So uh,
Speaker 1: coach Arian said on Monday, I think the day after
Speaker 1: the season, when obviously there was already speculation about the
Speaker 1: possibility of Tom Brady retiring, that he was comfortable with
Speaker 1: what's on the roster. I think he primarily meant Blaine Gabbert,
Speaker 1: who he has always been very very high on, has
Speaker 1: said a lot of publicly, very strong things about Blaine.
Speaker 1: Gabbert called him one of the more underrated players in
Speaker 1: the league at one point, and uh, you know, Kyle
Speaker 1: Trast just by virtue of the draft pick, obviously they
Speaker 1: see something in him, and he's he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of physical tools. It's just that we didn't you and
Speaker 1: I and and the viewing public didn't really learn much
Speaker 1: about Kyle trast this year because that's what that wasn't
Speaker 1: what's the sea and was about? Uh, it was about
Speaker 1: one more shot at it with Tom Brady. And so
Speaker 1: it's it's hard for me to say. I think Kyle
Speaker 1: Traska is definitely the quarterback of the future. I don't
Speaker 1: think the team knows that yet, but I think it's
Speaker 1: willing to find out, you know what I'm saying. But again,
Speaker 1: Bruce Arian said that door number two thing again. He said,
Speaker 1: we will be doing our homework, so, uh, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: look at all the possible options because we did that
Speaker 1: two years ago and look what we found. Yeah, I say,
Speaker 1: door number two worked out pretty well this last time.
Speaker 1: So he says that it gives me a lot of faith.
Speaker 1: So you brought up the free agency part. So let's also,
Speaker 1: of course, it's always a lot of fun to think
Speaker 1: of it as monopoly money and whoever you can get
Speaker 1: and sign on, what all you can do. But cap
Speaker 1: implications are very important to roster building, to picking out
Speaker 1: who the quarterback is going to be. So tell us
Speaker 1: what the Buck's current cap situation is. What losing Brady
Speaker 1: means to that what these guys that are free agents
Speaker 1: means just overall the quarterback implications on the Buccaneers cap well.
Speaker 1: The first thing to realize is that even though Tom
Speaker 1: Brady has officially said he's finished playing, the actual retirement
Speaker 1: process isn't happening today or necessarily in the next few
Speaker 1: weeks or months. And the reason for that is there
Speaker 1: are different ways you can manipulate the timing and possibly
Speaker 1: renegotiate the contract to either you know, reduce the cap
Speaker 1: hit to some extent or push some of it off.
Speaker 1: And you could do that by not actually placing him
Speaker 1: on the retired list or releasing him until after June
Speaker 1: twod what that would do. Right now, if you just
Speaker 1: released Tom Brady, you would get a thirty two million
Speaker 1: dollar dead cap hit, which means you'd be paying You'd
Speaker 1: be devoting thirty two million dollars on your cap to
Speaker 1: a player who's not on the roster. You can reduce
Speaker 1: that by about twelve million by just um waiting until
Speaker 1: June two and doing it then, and then you're you're
Speaker 1: pushing the rest of that cap hit one when there
Speaker 1: it will probably be a higher cap and the Bucks
Speaker 1: might not face as many uh important free agents decisions
Speaker 1: as they are facing right now. Also, if you could
Speaker 1: possibly look to what happened with Drew Brees last year
Speaker 1: in which the Saints and Breathes renegotiated his salary to
Speaker 1: take it down to the league minimum, which reduced the capit.
Speaker 1: And if you're if you're Drew Brees in that situation,
Speaker 1: you're not getting that salary anyway, it doesn't hurt you
Speaker 1: to to to reduce it, right, So there could be
Speaker 1: some maneuverings with Tom and the team working together to
Speaker 1: try to reduce that cap hit, because if just straight
Speaker 1: releasing them would be troublesome for the Buccaneers, who are
Speaker 1: right now are slated to be about fifteen million dollars
Speaker 1: under the cap. With the players they have in their contract,
Speaker 1: that's about a little under league average, but it's not
Speaker 1: great considering we have so many free agents we're going
Speaker 1: to try to resign, right And so, now, keeping that
Speaker 1: in mind, where do you see you know, Tom's replacement
Speaker 1: coming from inside the roster, draft, free agency? And how
Speaker 1: does the cap affect those different things in those different decisions, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the cap would be most likely to come in play.
Speaker 1: If you're trying to go after a veteran, you could
Speaker 1: we could talk about the free agents that are supposed
Speaker 1: to be on the market right now, like a Teddy
Speaker 1: Bridgewater or Marcus Mariotta or almost humorously, Jameis Winston, which
Speaker 1: seems like it would be hard to believe, but he
Speaker 1: is one of the phrases out there and he does have,
Speaker 1: you know, a body of work. Um, Tyrod Taylor, Mitch Drobiski.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are guys that are probably gonna blow
Speaker 1: the doors off for Bucks fans right now. Um, It's
Speaker 1: not like there's another Tom Brady right now. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation you're gonna see is players that
Speaker 1: are right now under contract but maybe have some reason
Speaker 1: to not be with their team next year. So we're
Speaker 1: we're not doing anything tampering because you and I are
Speaker 1: allowed to talk about this. Obviously, you're gonna be seen
Speaker 1: a lot of things like would they go after Earn Rodgers,
Speaker 1: would they go after Russell Wilson, Things like that those
Speaker 1: are possible. Seem a little far fetched, but that would
Speaker 1: involve quite a bit of work trying to fit him
Speaker 1: under the cap, or would definitely not be easy. The draft.
Speaker 1: It's not a great quarterback year for the draft. You've
Speaker 1: got Malik Willis out of Liberty, You've got let's see,
Speaker 1: I can't remember Kenny Pickett from Pitt Matt Ralph from
Speaker 1: Ole Miss. But I have a hard time seeing the
Speaker 1: Bucks draft another quarterback a year after they spent a
Speaker 1: second und pick on the quarterback. I think they probably
Speaker 1: want to find out what they have in him first.
Speaker 1: So if you're staying in house and either going with
Speaker 1: some combination of Matt of Kyle Trask and maybe resigning
Speaker 1: Blayne Gabber or something like that, the cap the cap
Speaker 1: implications aren't that bad. So now also, of course, the
Speaker 1: implications of Brady retiring on the rest of the team
Speaker 1: and on these other cap decisions and all these other
Speaker 1: free age and things. So um, this is definitely gonna
Speaker 1: make everything very interesting. You know, last year, the whole
Speaker 1: sentiment was we're bringing everybody back, We're doing it again.
Speaker 1: That take to all of that. So now knowing that
Speaker 1: Brady is retiring, what do you see as how this
Speaker 1: could affect the free agency priorities of who you bring
Speaker 1: back back, who you go after, How this could just
Speaker 1: shuffle everything up at all the other positions on the roster. Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing to note here is that that Tom
Speaker 1: Brady contract we were just talking about, he renegotiated that
Speaker 1: last year to add the year and some avoidable years
Speaker 1: on the end in order to give the Bucks capital leaf.
Speaker 1: Last year saved us like nineteen minute dollars in CAP
Speaker 1: space and very much helped in that effort to keep
Speaker 1: the whole band together, which the Bucks did successfully. It's
Speaker 1: not really gonna be an option this year, no matter
Speaker 1: what we do. The Brady retirement is not gonna probably
Speaker 1: not gonna be a good thing for the Cap unless
Speaker 1: they can work it out with him. As I said
Speaker 1: before renegotiating the salary, you might get a little bit
Speaker 1: of relief that way. Um, But I think what you're
Speaker 1: probably asking me more is what does Brady's departure? How
Speaker 1: does that affect all these other guys that may or
Speaker 1: may not want to come back? And I still think
Speaker 1: there's a culture here. I still think it's a good roster.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any reason why Chris godwindn't say
Speaker 1: or Ryan Jensen wouldn't want to come back if they
Speaker 1: can make it work. But obviously I think it would
Speaker 1: have been much more of a draw, more of an
Speaker 1: alert if Tom Brady was still here. So I can't
Speaker 1: see how the tom Brady retirement helps the books cause
Speaker 1: in terms of trying to keep a Chris Godwin or
Speaker 1: somebody like that. But hopefully these guys feel good about
Speaker 1: this team with even without Tom Brady, and there's incentive return,
Speaker 1: and there's incentive for the Buccaneers even without Tom Brady
Speaker 1: to say, we're still contenders this year and we're gonna
Speaker 1: try to keep as much as this core intact as possible.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a very interesting next couple of
Speaker 1: months in that regard, and we're gonna get a lot
Speaker 1: of answers about where this team is headed. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: that is going to do it for us on this
Speaker 1: special edition of Buccaneers Inside Are Live presented by Miller Lite.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for tuning in, and of course they
Speaker 1: tuned to Buccaneers dot Com for all the coverage of
Speaker 1: what will surely be an interesting free agency period. We'll
Speaker 1: see it then,