Speaker 1: Welcome to Books Insider Live.
Speaker 2: Casey Phillips here with senior writer and editor Scott Smith,
Speaker 2: and we have OTAs to talk about.
Speaker 1: Feels a little bit more football.
Speaker 3: Letantom, Yes, it's phase one, Phase two great, but finally
Speaker 3: now phase three and with you know the OTAs, the
Speaker 3: of the Vets, you have the rookies all out it's
Speaker 3: our first chance to kind of get a look at.
Speaker 4: Looks like real pros.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks more like real practice.
Speaker 2: Your first time to see the Vets and the rookies
Speaker 2: all out there together after.
Speaker 1: Rookie mini camp.
Speaker 2: It's just to me it always feels like kind of
Speaker 2: the real start of the next season a little bit,
Speaker 2: and so I know that we have a lot to
Speaker 2: get to because of that. We also have a trivia
Speaker 2: question like we do every week now, so let's hear it.
Speaker 4: Take it away.
Speaker 5: I like to make the trivia question something relating to
Speaker 5: something we're going to talk about. So we're going to
Speaker 5: talk about kay Otten and Titans a little bit later.
Speaker 5: So the question is Kate Otten's forty two receptions in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two were the second most in Buccaneer's history
Speaker 5: by a tight end. In his rookie season, who holds
Speaker 5: the team record for most receptions by a rookie tight end.
Speaker 1: Rookie tight end most receptions?
Speaker 2: All right, So if you know the answer to this,
Speaker 2: please leave it underneath the comments underneath our live video.
Speaker 1: We will try to see.
Speaker 2: If anyone gets it right later on give you a
Speaker 2: shout out on the show if we see it.
Speaker 1: So again, that is your question.
Speaker 2: Leave your answer in the comments underneath our live video
Speaker 2: on Facebook. So for now, let's talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about Chris Godwin, because, as we said, we've got the
Speaker 2: rookies out there, we've got the vets, and it is
Speaker 2: so funny now to think of Godwin as like such
Speaker 2: a vet and he's been here for so long that
Speaker 2: out there with everybody that this is the guy one
Speaker 2: of the you know. Now with this new offense, new
Speaker 2: offensive coordinator, Godwin is the elder statesman out there, and
Speaker 2: so it'll be interesting to see not only him, of
Speaker 2: course he's great in a leadership role, but now with
Speaker 2: a new offensive coordinator, him coming off an injury, what
Speaker 2: are our expectations for him this year and what that
Speaker 2: could look like.
Speaker 4: He was actually laughing about that too.
Speaker 5: He said he came in one day and some of
Speaker 5: the other vets weren't there, and he's looking around. He's like,
Speaker 5: I'm like the old guy now, and I don't feel
Speaker 5: like an old guy. Don't feel like a young guy.
Speaker 5: But Chris Godwin, one of the things he said when
Speaker 5: he spoke to the media on Tuesday that I loved
Speaker 5: was he said he thinks he's very close to being
Speaker 5: back to the peak form he was at before his
Speaker 5: knee injury in December of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4: Now, remember we're.
Speaker 5: Talking about a guy who had that injury in December
Speaker 5: December nineteenth, had surgery on January fifth or something like that,
Speaker 5: and was back on game on Week one of the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two season, and then, despite missing a couple
Speaker 5: of games, had one hundred and four catches, which was
Speaker 5: just too short of the team record for a single superhuman.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely yeah.
Speaker 4: He was fantastic last year. He really was.
Speaker 5: But the offense, as we know, was a lot of
Speaker 5: quick passes, which played into him playing out of the slot,
Speaker 5: and so as you see here, his yards per catch
Speaker 5: were by far his lowest of his career. And what
Speaker 5: we have here is sort of the evolution of how
Speaker 5: Chris Godwin's role in the offense has gone since his
Speaker 5: rookie season. If you look in the leftmost column there,
Speaker 5: you see the differences between the percentage of his plays
Speaker 5: in the out wide and in the slot. And the
Speaker 5: reason those don't add up to one hundred is because
Speaker 5: there's other things like in the backfield or lined up tight.
Speaker 5: But for the most part, that's most of his snaps.
Speaker 5: And look at that from seventy sixty seven percent. Early
Speaker 5: in his career he was playing mostly outside and then
Speaker 5: twenty nineteen was the arrival of Bruce Arians and that staff,
Speaker 5: of course, and he started playing a lot more in
Speaker 5: the slot. Now, if you look at his yards per
Speaker 5: catch and his route depth, you see those gradually go down.
Speaker 5: But we see from those first three seasons in particular,
Speaker 5: especially twenty nineteen, even though he's playing a lot more
Speaker 5: on of the slot, this is a guy that can
Speaker 5: get downfield.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: And that's what Dave Canals and Brad didzig No about
Speaker 5: Chris Godwin. Yes, he's fantastic in the slot. We're very
Speaker 5: lucky to have a big slot who can dominate in that.
Speaker 5: But he can also really help you on the outside.
Speaker 5: He can get deep if you think about the first
Speaker 5: touchdown in Chris Godwin's career, it was that in the
Speaker 5: last game of his rookie season that won the New
Speaker 5: Orleans game. James Winston was probably supposed to throw a
Speaker 5: you know, Chris Gowin was probably running just a clear
Speaker 5: out round on a fly and Jamis was probably supposed
Speaker 5: to throw it underneath to get some yards for the
Speaker 5: game winning field goal. Instead, you threw it a top
Speaker 5: to Chris Godlin for the touchdown. And that's the kind
Speaker 5: of play that Chris Godwin is capable of making. And
Speaker 5: now they're going to use him more in that role.
Speaker 5: They'll still play in the slot, but he's going to
Speaker 5: go back to playing more on the outside. And I
Speaker 5: think you'll probably see his route depth in his yards
Speaker 5: per kerry go out, I mean yards per catch go up.
Speaker 1: That's going to be interesting.
Speaker 2: And then another person that I know hopes to be
Speaker 2: a big part of the offense, Kate ot and you
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: We wanted to discuss him.
Speaker 2: He spoke to the media and you know, now you
Speaker 2: have no Cambray, you have no Gronk. So the tight
Speaker 2: end group and leader is definitely going to look different
Speaker 2: than it has in a long time here at the Buccaneers.
Speaker 2: But Kate Aten had some really big moments in some
Speaker 2: big games last year and as a rookie, which is incredible.
Speaker 2: So what do we feel like expectations could be for him?
Speaker 2: Does he seem like the guy that is ready to
Speaker 2: be you know, the number one guy in that room.
Speaker 5: Did you hear him talking about meeting Gronk? Did you
Speaker 5: hear what they said they did? No, you probably think, like,
Speaker 5: smash beer Ken's on their head.
Speaker 1: Or well, if it was Gronk and Je it.
Speaker 5: Was at Cam's house. They played board games. I love
Speaker 5: that board games with Gronk.
Speaker 1: Board games with Gronk.
Speaker 4: Kate said he didn't win, so Gronk might be pretty good.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised. He seems like the guy that's
Speaker 1: just randomly good at everything.
Speaker 5: In a way, kid wants to be like Gronk in
Speaker 5: that like him and a couple guys like George Kittle,
Speaker 5: he wants to be that true why two way every
Speaker 5: down tight end that you trust him in the running
Speaker 5: game to block to seel loft that defensive end on
Speaker 5: the strong side, and you trust him to beat the
Speaker 5: safety going down the seams and that's what he wants
Speaker 5: to be and honestly, we saw a lot of that
Speaker 5: in his rookie season. Nobody's putting him in the group
Speaker 5: of George Kittle and Travis Kelcey and Gronk right now,
Speaker 5: But in terms of filling a role where you could
Speaker 5: be on the field for eighty percent of snaps like
Speaker 5: Gronk was, he's almost there already.
Speaker 4: And the other thing about this is that.
Speaker 5: He's probably going to get more opportunities in twelve personnel,
Speaker 5: which is two tight end sets, and they drafted Pain
Speaker 5: Durham probably in order to have more options for that,
Speaker 5: because if you look at this day, we have the
Speaker 5: Seahawks former Seahawks coach as our offensive coordinator now, Dave Canalis,
Speaker 5: and last year the Seahawks ran twelve personnel on twenty
Speaker 5: nine point five percent of their snaps, which is third
Speaker 5: most in the league. And you see the difference between
Speaker 5: that and what the Buccaneers did and what the NFL
Speaker 5: average did is so I think you're going to see
Speaker 5: more of that, and that's just as Kate himself said,
Speaker 5: that's just more opportunities for.
Speaker 2: Them, okay, and I love when this happens. We have
Speaker 2: breaking breaking news. But our one of our producers just
Speaker 2: handed this. It's I mean breaking news is you know,
Speaker 2: maybe a generous term. But in the off season we
Speaker 2: can be generous is what we consider breaking news. We
Speaker 2: officially have the times for our preseason games and days,
Speaker 2: so if anybody was planning on making a trip to
Speaker 2: one of those booking tickets, we finally have because they
Speaker 2: always released the regular season schedule, and we know who
Speaker 2: we're playing in the preseason, but we don't ever really
Speaker 2: know when all of that stuff. So we now know
Speaker 2: that we were playing these Steelers August eleventh at seven
Speaker 2: pm at home.
Speaker 4: That's a Friday.
Speaker 2: Sure, I don't have a calendar in front of me.
Speaker 2: The next it doesn't say the day, just a good
Speaker 2: dated okay. So then we have the New York Jets
Speaker 2: on the road August nineteenth at seven thirty, So if
Speaker 2: you said the eleventh, you thought was a Friday, so
Speaker 2: that would make the nineteenth Saturday. And then at home
Speaker 2: again against the Baltimore Ravens for the third preseason game
Speaker 2: at seven o'clock August twenty sixth. So there are your
Speaker 2: preseason times, dates, schedule, all of that. So hopefully we'll
Speaker 2: be able to see a lot of you out there
Speaker 2: at those games. I wanted to go ahead and give
Speaker 2: people another chance at the trivia question in case people
Speaker 2: tuned in a little late.
Speaker 5: So hit us with that, all right, repeating the trivia
Speaker 5: question from earlier, because we're talking about Kate Atton a
Speaker 5: lot today. Caate Otten's forty two receptions in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: two were the second most in Buccaneer's history by a
Speaker 5: tight end in his rookie season. Who holds the team
Speaker 5: record for most receptions by a rookie tight end.
Speaker 2: I like it, okay, So I know that we are
Speaker 2: Also we talked about we're in OTAs we're in was
Speaker 2: also called phase three of the off season programs. So
Speaker 2: take people through a little bit about what that means
Speaker 2: and where we're at in the off season schedule as
Speaker 2: they progress through to more real football.
Speaker 5: Well you mentioned it earlier. It's more like a real practice.
Speaker 5: Now they're allowed to do offense versus defense. They weren't
Speaker 5: allowed to do that before. In the first phase is
Speaker 5: just basically working out and classroom stuff. And second phase
Speaker 5: who could do individual drills and things like that, But
Speaker 5: now they can have what looks like a recognizable football practice,
Speaker 5: there's no contact, no pads, so you don't get that
Speaker 5: until training camp. But you do have receivers running against
Speaker 5: cornerbacks and so on quarterbacks trying to complete passes to
Speaker 5: guys that are actually being covered, and that's what you
Speaker 5: have in OTAs, and you get a total of ten OTAs.
Speaker 5: Here's the schedule, which we've already started, so we're at
Speaker 5: the end of that first line there, the first three OTAs,
Speaker 5: and then next week they'll be three more.
Speaker 4: The week after that they'll be four more. All those
Speaker 4: are voluntary.
Speaker 5: Now I counted, and I believe we had eighty of
Speaker 5: the ninety players on the right here. A couple of
Speaker 5: them are a little banged up and warn't playing, but
Speaker 5: they were here on Tuesday when we started, so we've
Speaker 5: had very good turnoff for that. But they are voluntary.
Speaker 5: Some guys choose to pursue their own regimens away from
Speaker 5: the team, and that's totally fine. And then on June
Speaker 5: thirteenth through fifteen is the three day mini camp, which
Speaker 5: actually is mandatory for all players, including veterans.
Speaker 4: So that's what's left. And then after that it's the
Speaker 4: big break before training camp.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, also we I know had some rule changes
Speaker 2: voted on this last week, So what if any of
Speaker 2: those are going to pertain to the average fan watching Again, Well, the.
Speaker 5: Two big ones are they brought back the inactive third
Speaker 5: quarterback rule, which was it's not exactly the same as
Speaker 5: the previous rule, but it's very close, which was in
Speaker 5: effect from ninety one through twenty ten. So you know,
Speaker 5: you get it used to be forty six, so you
Speaker 5: get forty eight active players, and you have to name
Speaker 5: five to seven inactives depending on how many you have
Speaker 5: on your roster, you know, in game day elevations and
Speaker 5: things like that. Now you can still do that, but
Speaker 5: one of your inactive players can be a quarterback that
Speaker 5: you designate as your third quarterback, and if your first
Speaker 5: two guys are out of the game due to injury
Speaker 5: or ejection, then that guy can come in and play.
Speaker 4: And even though he was labeled inactive to start the.
Speaker 5: Game under the old rule, once he came in, if
Speaker 5: it was in the first three quarters, the first two
Speaker 5: guys were then ineligible to come back into the game.
Speaker 5: But now if an injured quarterback goes out and that
Speaker 5: third quarterback is activated, if he is then ruled that
Speaker 5: he can come.
Speaker 4: Back into the game. He can come back into the game. Okay,
Speaker 4: slight difference.
Speaker 5: So, and then the other one is the new kickoff
Speaker 5: touchback rule, which if you've watched on college football you've
Speaker 5: seen a lot of it. You can fair catch the
Speaker 5: ball anywhere on the field behind your own twenty five
Speaker 5: yard line, and if you do and you fair catch it,
Speaker 5: the ball's placed at the twenty five So it's just
Speaker 5: more of an effort really, Honestly, all of these changes
Speaker 5: to the kickoff rule in recent years have been to
Speaker 5: pretty much make fewer of them because it has been
Speaker 5: deemed the most dangerous playing the game, and it's about
Speaker 5: player safety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm slowly wish. We are always a big fans of
Speaker 2: all right, so we're closing out here.
Speaker 1: Give us our answer to our trivia question.
Speaker 5: Okay, are we gonna put it on the screen? I
Speaker 5: can do it for remember, Oh, there it is. The
Speaker 5: answer is Tim Wright, who had fifty four catches in
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen. And Tim Wright was a little bit of
Speaker 5: an interesting story in that, you know, Greg Shannon was
Speaker 5: the head coach then from Rutgers, and he was one
Speaker 5: of his.
Speaker 4: Players of Rutgers.
Speaker 5: He was actually a big wide receiver at Rutgers, but
Speaker 5: the Bucks brought him in and converted him to tight
Speaker 5: end and he had a big season catching passes in
Speaker 5: his rookie season. The other interesting thing about Tim Wright
Speaker 5: is he's a rare player that the Bucaneers have actually
Speaker 5: traded away twice.
Speaker 1: It's incredible, such an interesting.
Speaker 4: It's a little too much of a story to tell,
Speaker 4: but the Bucks actually traded him twice twice.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's going to do it for us on this
Speaker 2: edition of Bucks Insider Live. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 2: We'll see you next week.