Speaker 1: Welcome into a special Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller.
Speaker 1: Like Casey Phillips, here was senior writer and editor Scott Smith,
Speaker 1: and it might as well be called Brady Insider Live
Speaker 1: because that is what we are here to talk about. Nos,
Speaker 1: not a dream. No, you did not make this up.
Speaker 1: Tom Brady announced he is officially unretiring after a long
Speaker 1: I don't know, forty one forty two days stint. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I was having a pretty
Speaker 1: chill Sunday there for a while. Yeah. Why did we
Speaker 1: think that was an option in the middle of Marge,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And so here it is. This is
Speaker 1: his message that he sent out saying that he is
Speaker 1: officially coming back. So we are here to talk about
Speaker 1: what that means for this franchise, aside from the fact
Speaker 1: of a lot of excitement for Bucks fans, the Bucks organization.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have just seen the impact he has
Speaker 1: had on this team, on this city. So first I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear your reaction to seeing that he was
Speaker 1: back in your chill Sunday, What that was like to
Speaker 1: see that he was officially that had to be the biggest,
Speaker 1: absolute lack of roster move that the franchise has ever had,
Speaker 1: because there really was no move when he elected to
Speaker 1: retire about a month and a half ago. He didn't
Speaker 1: we didn't actually make a roster move, thank goodness, and
Speaker 1: so there was no move to make, yes Orday either,
Speaker 1: it was just, uh, he's back, and yeah, I was surprised. Um,
Speaker 1: there wasn't really any morning, but it was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was nice. It was you know, sometimes you get
Speaker 1: a little piece of news that he didn't see coming
Speaker 1: and it's good news. I mean it was. It was
Speaker 1: an exciting Sunday, that's for sure. It was going to
Speaker 1: be much more exciting going forward now as well. Yes, which,
Speaker 1: speaking of that, that is largely what we're here to
Speaker 1: talk about, because we know everybody knows he's back. So
Speaker 1: now we're going to discuss what that means to this
Speaker 1: franchise moving forward. And so let's talk about the timing
Speaker 1: of his announcement and how well that works for the
Speaker 1: organization and what that is going to mean for Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: in about two hours, the legal tampering period as they
Speaker 1: call it, will start, and that's when teams can start
Speaker 1: talking to free ages of teams. But even before that,
Speaker 1: the Buccaneers have been able to talk to their own
Speaker 1: free agents, so we all we all obviously already know
Speaker 1: Chris Godman is coming back on the franchise Dagger possibly
Speaker 1: if they can get it done a long term deal. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's nothing official otherwise, but we did obviously see reports
Speaker 1: that perhaps Ryan Jensen is going to resign, which would
Speaker 1: be incredible news because basically that's saying two Pro bowlers
Speaker 1: who you might have been without are now hopefully coming back,
Speaker 1: definitely in Tom Brady's case, and and we may have
Speaker 1: news on Ryan Jensen at some point, and there's been
Speaker 1: nothing official from the team yet, but I think you
Speaker 1: can see how that would impact the decisions of all
Speaker 1: those guys. And there's still another twenty one unrestricted free
Speaker 1: agents to deal with in a couple of restricted free agents,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of work to potentially get done.
Speaker 1: But I gotta believe, I mean, this isn't rocket science.
Speaker 1: If Tom Brady's coming back, that would make it more
Speaker 1: likely that a lot of these guys would choose to
Speaker 1: come back as well. The most obvious one probably that
Speaker 1: everybody's thinking. The first connection you're gonna make is Rob Gronkowski,
Speaker 1: Right there is Rob Gronkowski would seem much more likely
Speaker 1: to come back to play with Brady just like he
Speaker 1: did two years ago. Yeah, and everything talked about Brady's
Speaker 1: recruiting ability, the power of Brady to make guys want
Speaker 1: to come play with him, want to be on the team.
Speaker 1: So when free agency is all about selling people to
Speaker 1: and especially to get them to sign for things that
Speaker 1: let you have the salary cap room, and so what
Speaker 1: do you feel like are some of the priorities now
Speaker 1: of and even just the strategy of free agency when
Speaker 1: it was are we able to do all these things
Speaker 1: under the cap room? Are we rebuilding? Are we not?
Speaker 1: And now knowing and I know that we have a
Speaker 1: statement from Jason Light that he put out as well
Speaker 1: talking about their ideas here and so he is obviously
Speaker 1: saying that you know now they're trying to reload this
Speaker 1: roster for another championship run. Is the end of that statement,
Speaker 1: And what do you think that is going to mean
Speaker 1: in terms of the priorities of who they try to
Speaker 1: bring back, how they try to do that in our
Speaker 1: our salary cap situation. Yeah, to me, the other than
Speaker 1: the actual I'm coming back from Tom Brady, the best
Speaker 1: quote the Night is the less sentence there on Jason
Speaker 1: Light's statement, Um, you see that. You don't see the
Speaker 1: word rebuild there, You see reload. And I had wondered
Speaker 1: going into the start of free agency if we would
Speaker 1: see from the moves the Buccaneers were making how they
Speaker 1: were going to approach this season considering you thought you
Speaker 1: didn't have Tom Brady, and that makes a really big
Speaker 1: question mark at the most important position on the field.
Speaker 1: You don't know if you can get another player that's
Speaker 1: gonna be so impactful and can make so much out
Speaker 1: of this offense. You just don't know. I mean, it
Speaker 1: could have possibly happened, but now you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about that anymore. So I thought the roster moves
Speaker 1: might tell us whether the Buccaneers were going to actually
Speaker 1: go into rebuild, even if they don't want to say
Speaker 1: that word. Now it's pretty obvious it's reload, right And uh,
Speaker 1: and we haven't seen a ton, but we've seen the
Speaker 1: franchise tag on Chris Godwin, which is a move that
Speaker 1: I would say is pretty aggressively going for it right. Um,
Speaker 1: and and maybe Ryan Jensen returning would be a pretty
Speaker 1: aggressive going forward type of move as well. Maybe if
Speaker 1: Rob Gronkowski chooses to return now because of Tom Brady,
Speaker 1: But I think it's all amped up by huge amount
Speaker 1: the fact that we know Tom Brady is gonna be back.
Speaker 1: I mean to me that that sets the direction for
Speaker 1: the franchise for this coming season. When headed into free agency,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure which way they were going to go, right,
Speaker 1: and so now that we do know Tom Brady is back,
Speaker 1: looking at not only free agency but also the draft,
Speaker 1: it is the biggest priorities of We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about who we're going to resign, but maybe who you're
Speaker 1: also trying to get outside of that, or some of
Speaker 1: the positions that now become potentially even more important. What
Speaker 1: do you see as the biggest priorities of what you
Speaker 1: are not only keeping but potentially adding to this team. Well,
Speaker 1: I would be surprised if there are very many like
Speaker 1: high profile editions, just because the Buccaneers are in the
Speaker 1: exact same position they've been in the last two years,
Speaker 1: when the priority was clearly getting back as many of
Speaker 1: your own free agency as possible, because that's a lot
Speaker 1: of really good players on that list, and there are
Speaker 1: always ways to make caproman We've already seen the Buccaneers
Speaker 1: do a little bit of that with the vella this
Speaker 1: in the past few weeks. But um, you still there
Speaker 1: is a finite amount at some point, and I think
Speaker 1: their first priority, just as it was each of the
Speaker 1: last two years, will be to keep their own players
Speaker 1: of this championship corps intact. And you saw like the
Speaker 1: last couple of years there was one or two editions
Speaker 1: like Giovanni Bernard last year, Um, but mostly was keeping
Speaker 1: your own guys. Uh. I would say the biggest questions
Speaker 1: are probably the offensive line, because um, Jason Lane and
Speaker 1: Bruce Arians made it clear at the combine a couple
Speaker 1: weeks ago that maintaining a dominant offensive line is a
Speaker 1: top priority. And that's not easy when your left guard
Speaker 1: is retired and your right guard and your center are
Speaker 1: both potential unrestricted free agents. Uh So I would think
Speaker 1: that is still and we resigned here and sent steady
Speaker 1: by way, so that helps. So you could see movement.
Speaker 1: They're trying to keep that offensive line intact. And then
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do in the backfield since Leonard
Speaker 1: Fournette and Ronald Jones are both unrestricted free agents. Obviously
Speaker 1: we saw how well Leonard Fournette has fit into this
Speaker 1: offense with Tom Brady and company, but he may be
Speaker 1: looking for a long term deal or a bigger deal
Speaker 1: somewhere else. So how are they going to resolve was
Speaker 1: going on in the backfield? And then obviously the offensive line.
Speaker 1: With the offensive line, it's been funny to see people
Speaker 1: wondering if Ali Marpett was going to come out of retirement,
Speaker 1: but I think apparently not. It seems like he actually
Speaker 1: is retired. I know that, uh we we hope that
Speaker 1: maybe it just meant that those words didn't mean anything
Speaker 1: to anybody. And now that Brady's back in the tire,
Speaker 1: Ki could just come back. So um, yeah, with Aaron
Speaker 1: Stinney resigning. Overall, what do you think of the draft
Speaker 1: with an offensive lineman and where the Bucks are drafting,
Speaker 1: how much of a benefit that could be where they're
Speaker 1: picking and the the type of guy. Is it a
Speaker 1: first round choice? Is it in around the second or
Speaker 1: third rounder? Yeah. The last week's mock draft, when I
Speaker 1: did I actually gave the Buckaneers Zion Johnson from Boston
Speaker 1: College and it just seemed like there was good value
Speaker 1: there at the end of the first round with a
Speaker 1: couple of interior offensive lineman. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned in that article, Jason Light and company
Speaker 1: have shown that they can find starting offensive linemen in
Speaker 1: the second and third round. They kind of had to
Speaker 1: move around a little bit to do it. I think
Speaker 1: they traded up for both Alan mark Pett and Alex Cappa,
Speaker 1: but they found and Diamond Smith was the second rounder
Speaker 1: as well, though a high second runner, they have been
Speaker 1: able to find starting an immediate almost in Alan mar
Speaker 1: Pett and Diamond Smith's case, immediate starters in the second
Speaker 1: and third round. So, um, you don't absolutely have to
Speaker 1: devote your first round pick to that. And uh, I
Speaker 1: think there are other positions that will show some value
Speaker 1: there late in the first round, including cornerback and wide receiver.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of ways the Buccaneers can go
Speaker 1: and maybe maybe they won't be so desperate for an
Speaker 1: offensive lineman if the reports and Ryan Jenson are true,
Speaker 1: and if they can get Alex Cappa back, because with
Speaker 1: Aaron Stinney, you hope that he can step right in
Speaker 1: and left guard and play as well as he did
Speaker 1: uh in the playoffs in when the Buckners were on
Speaker 1: the way to the Super Bowl, Okay, all right. We
Speaker 1: had a couple of Facebook questions that I'll get to here.
Speaker 1: Um Asher wanted to know, do you think the reconstruction
Speaker 1: of Vita Vea was freeing up money to sign for
Speaker 1: net You know, I never really connected the dots directly
Speaker 1: between the fact that they're freeing up money for the
Speaker 1: starter free agency and on specific free agent, but that
Speaker 1: does make some sense. Yeah, It's just running back contracts
Speaker 1: are tricky because they're tricky to speculate about because you
Speaker 1: just don't know which There's a lot of teams I
Speaker 1: think don't want to spend a lot of money on
Speaker 1: running backs. I don't know if the Buccaneers are in
Speaker 1: that position or not. Um, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: team that throws the ball probably almost like two thirds
Speaker 1: of the time, and they, like a Brutalians, wants to
Speaker 1: have a balance offense. But that more means a running
Speaker 1: game that that you're worried about if you're the other team,
Speaker 1: That at least is something that makes the other team
Speaker 1: have to concentrate on. That doesn't mean we're gonna run
Speaker 1: the ball at the time. It just means you have
Speaker 1: an effective running game when you need to. So does
Speaker 1: that diminish the value of running back or do you
Speaker 1: look at Leonard for for NET over the past two seasons,
Speaker 1: including especially including the post season and most of the
Speaker 1: last year and go, well, this guy, maybe it's a
Speaker 1: little bit better than than what you can find just
Speaker 1: on the street elsewhere, or how you think key Shan
Speaker 1: Bond can fill that role. So I think it's a
Speaker 1: little bit tricky. I don't know if that move was
Speaker 1: made specifically for Leonard for NET, but it was obviously
Speaker 1: made to be able to retain some of these guys, right,
Speaker 1: And is that an area to where knowing Brady's back,
Speaker 1: the type of running back that works well with him,
Speaker 1: that he likes to work with, that does that also
Speaker 1: change either the desire to bring back for Nett or
Speaker 1: or Ronald Jones or even just who you would be
Speaker 1: looking at otherwise that it's one thing to just know, Okay,
Speaker 1: we want a running back, but the type of running
Speaker 1: back that you know works well in a Tom Brady
Speaker 1: let off, I would think maybe even a smaller or
Speaker 1: a different way to look at it would be Tom
Speaker 1: Brady's back. And I think it's probably fair to say
Speaker 1: that Tom Brady's input has had an effect on the
Speaker 1: Buck's decisions on offense over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: So will Tom Brady's return and will he start having
Speaker 1: input again? I would think so. And if Tom Brady
Speaker 1: really wants to learn four net back, I think that
Speaker 1: would be you know, a big impetus for for the
Speaker 1: Buccaneers to try to bring him back. All right, So
Speaker 1: our next question is from Richard here, and he said,
Speaker 1: with Brady coming back, how does that affect our salary caps?
Speaker 1: So we talked about the idea of what it means
Speaker 1: for a salary cap of all the other people you're
Speaker 1: gonna try to now bring back, but how about him individually?
Speaker 1: You mentioned that they had not made any roster moves
Speaker 1: and so what does his impact on the salary cap
Speaker 1: mean for this year? Well, it doesn't change anything at
Speaker 1: the moment because there was no roster move, so I
Speaker 1: guess they were they wouldn't. One of the reasons that
Speaker 1: the Buccaneers were not didn't immediately make a move and
Speaker 1: put them on reserve, retired or something like that, is
Speaker 1: you just you wanted to let to play out and
Speaker 1: see what the best way was to handle the roster
Speaker 1: move in terms of the salary cap impact. You know,
Speaker 1: would you would you make him, would you make the
Speaker 1: move after June one? That kind of thing to spread
Speaker 1: the impact over two years. Um, So the salary cap
Speaker 1: didn't change at all because there was no roster move.
Speaker 1: And you have to remember that Tom Brady, for being
Speaker 1: a top three quarterback in the NFL, the salary that
Speaker 1: he's making is incredibly, almost insanely good value for the Buccaneers.
Speaker 1: So um, I'm not sure exactly. I I don't think
Speaker 1: that his decision to retire hurts the Buckaners in terms
Speaker 1: of the salary cap, but in the bigger picture, the
Speaker 1: amount of the salary cap that he's taking up to
Speaker 1: be a top three quarterback in the NFL is is
Speaker 1: a value, all right. And our next one here is
Speaker 1: from Jamie who said, do you think we get a
Speaker 1: long term deal done with Godwin soon? So how does
Speaker 1: this resigning of Brady or Brady coming back affect the
Speaker 1: idea of god when being on the franchise tag verse
Speaker 1: long term? I think so, I really, honestly, it's just
Speaker 1: a hunch, but the the salary cap impact of the
Speaker 1: franchise tag is about nineteen point two million, just period.
Speaker 1: That's what it is. Next year. But if you do
Speaker 1: a long term deal and you know, Mike Williams, for instance,
Speaker 1: for the Charges recently got six or three years, sixty
Speaker 1: millions like twenty million a year. Seems like that would
Speaker 1: be a starting point for Chris god when I'm not
Speaker 1: a an agent or a salary negotiator, but it's just
Speaker 1: common sense, right, But you can structure that deal so
Speaker 1: that the salary cap hit for the first year is
Speaker 1: less than that. So if you can work out a
Speaker 1: long term deal with Chris Godwin, you can actually he
Speaker 1: can actually make more but have less of a salary
Speaker 1: cap hit this year. And since this is this could
Speaker 1: be Tom Brady's last year, right, this is definitely a go,
Speaker 1: all in go for a year, and you would probably
Speaker 1: want to push off some of the salary cap hit
Speaker 1: into later years when the salary cap is probably gonna
Speaker 1: grow and it would be easier to fit it anyway.
Speaker 1: So signing Chris Godwin to a long term deal is
Speaker 1: almost certainly going to help the Bucks in terms of
Speaker 1: salary cap now, which is obviously great motivation for the
Speaker 1: team to get it done. So does Chris Godwin want
Speaker 1: to do a long term deal with the Buccaneers? My
Speaker 1: guests is yes, I'm not you know, at home with
Speaker 1: Chris Godwen. I don't know how he really feels, but
Speaker 1: my guess is that he would like to stay here,
Speaker 1: particularly Tom Brady returning right, So my my hunch is
Speaker 1: that they will get a long term deal done done
Speaker 1: with Chris Godwin this year. Um, if you remember last year,
Speaker 1: he actually signed the franchise tag just about eight days
Speaker 1: after getting it. I mean he pretty quickly he was,
Speaker 1: he signed it, So we'll see if he does that
Speaker 1: then obviously he's intending to play it out and hit
Speaker 1: for next year. But if you don't see that happening quickly,
Speaker 1: then that's probably be as signed. They're trying to get
Speaker 1: working on that deal, all right, Well that is going
Speaker 1: to do it for us. On this special edition of
Speaker 1: Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite, we are so
Speaker 1: excited about a return of Tom Brady. Thank you all
Speaker 1: for watching, and of course this kicks off a very
Speaker 1: exciting week of free agency, so make sure you stay
Speaker 1: tuned to Buccaneers dot com for all of our coverage
Speaker 1: of that