Speaker 1: Welcome into Road to the Draft. Casey Phillips here with
Speaker 1: senior writer and editor Scott Smith. This is where we
Speaker 1: talk about all the news that's happening in the buccaneer
Speaker 1: world and how it might affect what they do in
Speaker 1: the draft. We are almost to April now, it's right
Speaker 1: around the corner. It always feels like this is about
Speaker 1: the time where maybe some of the mock drafts start
Speaker 1: to coalesce a little bit. People start to get kind
Speaker 1: of these common themes for different teams, whereas at the
Speaker 1: beginning it's kind of all over the place. So more
Speaker 1: free agency has happened, we have a lot more evidence
Speaker 1: and information. So last weekend we talked a lot about
Speaker 1: some of the lesser likely things to happen. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you're starting to get a sense of what
Speaker 1: people view is the more likely scenario? And part of
Speaker 1: that involves the inevitable rise of certain positions. So quarterbacks
Speaker 1: tend to rise. Offensive tackles, they tend to rise as
Speaker 1: you get closer. And by rise, I mean if you
Speaker 1: look at a mock draft, you see them lower one
Speaker 1: week and then higher the next week. Are they really
Speaker 1: changing on the boards of teams? Probably not a lot,
Speaker 1: but just people are getting either better ideas that everybody
Speaker 1: agrees with or the getting information. And I'll start with
Speaker 1: one that came from a guy who's pretty plugged in,
Speaker 1: Daniel Jeremiah. He's got good sources in the NFL. So
Speaker 1: a lot of mock drafts you see out there are
Speaker 1: people basically doing the logical thing, Okay, this team needs
Speaker 1: a quarterback, who's the best quarterback available. Some of these guys, though,
Speaker 1: they can maybe get some bits of information, and so
Speaker 1: you look at their drafts a little bit more like
Speaker 1: maybe they know something. And Janel Jeremiah of NFL dot
Speaker 1: Com recently put out his I think it's his first
Speaker 1: mock draft, and it's an unusual pick. I've seen it
Speaker 1: a few times, but he had Will Levis, the Kentucky quarterback,
Speaker 1: falling all the way to the Buccaneers and US taking
Speaker 1: him at nineteen. Will will Levis last till nineteen, not
Speaker 1: on most mock drafts, But it's possible, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So what you have to think about is
Speaker 1: would the Buccaneers even consider taking a quarterback at nineteen?
Speaker 1: And I honestly think you can't write off the possibility
Speaker 1: because you have Baker Mayfield on a one year contract
Speaker 1: and you have Cole Chess who you really don't know
Speaker 1: how it's going to go yet, And are either of
Speaker 1: them going to be the quarterback of the future. I'm
Speaker 1: sure of them are going to try to be, and
Speaker 1: you know hopefully that is the case, right, but you
Speaker 1: don't know that for sure, And if you have a
Speaker 1: chance to add another candidate there, maybe you do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's out of the out of the question.
Speaker 1: I don't think quarterback is the Buck's number one goal
Speaker 1: going into this draft in the first round, but I
Speaker 1: don't think it's out of the question. Yeah, Which, what
Speaker 1: would you say? So outside of that one, what are
Speaker 1: some of the ones that do feel like maybe a
Speaker 1: more traditional look based on what the Bucks probably more
Speaker 1: like and more likely might you see the offensive tackles?
Speaker 1: As I mentioned all this time, it looks like if
Speaker 1: the Buckner state at nineteen, that Northwesterns Peter Scrownski and
Speaker 1: ohiouse States Paris Johnson and probably George's Roderick Jones will
Speaker 1: be out of our reach by then. And so that's why,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about in previous weeks. You see a
Speaker 1: guy like Darnell Wright of Tennessee going to US a
Speaker 1: lot at nineteen. But all of a sudden, now Darnell
Speaker 1: Right's rising too because he you know, he's a good prospect.
Speaker 1: He could step right in and be right tackle, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of teams that could use that. So
Speaker 1: now I start seeing him go before nineteen. So who's
Speaker 1: next on that list? For most people, it's Oklahoma's Anton Harrison,
Speaker 1: who is very technically sound guy. He's probably not quite
Speaker 1: as like strong as some of these guys that would
Speaker 1: go before him, but he's very technically sound. He does
Speaker 1: the right thing all the time. He could seven right
Speaker 1: away and be a left tackle for you or a
Speaker 1: right tackle depending on what you want to do with
Speaker 1: Tristan Worth. So you see a lot of that. I
Speaker 1: know that. In our Insider this week, we talked about
Speaker 1: the dB position of knowing you've lost. You know you've
Speaker 1: already lost Mike Edwards, you've lost on Murphy Bunting. You
Speaker 1: do have your outside corners back, but just in general,
Speaker 1: do you feel like dB? And I know you always
Speaker 1: love to talk about that you can never have enough corners.
Speaker 1: I don't know if safety always applies as much in
Speaker 1: your mind, but just the dB position overall, do you
Speaker 1: feel like that's one where based on the whole need
Speaker 1: versus strength of the draft, is that one that could
Speaker 1: end up lining up well for the Bucks. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And if you look at it just recent years, Jason
Speaker 1: Light and company did such a good job, like in
Speaker 1: the second and third round, drafting one dB after another,
Speaker 1: multiple ones in the same year. They all stuck around,
Speaker 1: and we're starters for four years. Some of them you're
Speaker 1: able to resign. Some of them, like Mike Edwards and
Speaker 1: Sean Murphy Bunting, you are not. And so it's at
Speaker 1: some point it becomes time to reload. There. And a
Speaker 1: guy that we've talked about before but I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention again because he's all of a sudden really popular
Speaker 1: for the Buccaneers at number nineteen is Alabama's safety Brian Branch.
Speaker 1: And we were talking about this earlier today that the
Speaker 1: Buccaneers and Todd Bowles was asked about this yesterday at
Speaker 1: the owner's meetings. Clearly with Carlton Davis and Jamal Dean.
Speaker 1: The Buccaneers have their outside corners in place for a
Speaker 1: few years, but who's going to play the slot with
Speaker 1: Anton Woodfield now focusing on free safety. Alabama's Brian branch
Speaker 1: is really a lot a lot of scouts like him
Speaker 1: because he's very versatile. You can put him at back
Speaker 1: there at safety, but you could also play him in
Speaker 1: the slot. So the Buccaneers don't necessarily have a frontline
Speaker 1: candidate for that slot position right now. If you could
Speaker 1: add one through the draft in the first round, plus
Speaker 1: a guy that could played a couple of different positions
Speaker 1: for you, it could be pretty good value. Well, and
Speaker 1: in those highlights, we just saw him being a return guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be bad either, that would be I was
Speaker 1: just thinking. I was like, man, this wasn't something we
Speaker 1: plan on talking about, but that is something that I
Speaker 1: feel like isn't set necessarily for the Bucks this year.
Speaker 1: Devin Tompkins finished the season, but is he one for sure? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if and add that, that's a whole other reason
Speaker 1: to draft him. All right, Well, that's going to do
Speaker 1: it for us. On this edition of Road to the
Speaker 1: Draft again, We'll be doing these all the way up
Speaker 1: until the draft based on everything going on. So come
Speaker 1: back for another Road to the Draft next time.