Speaker 1: Good morning, Bucks fans. How's everyone doing that, Casey Phillips.
Speaker 1: Here was senior writer and editor Scott Smith, And as always,
Speaker 1: this is Buccaneers Insider Live, presented by Miller Lte, where
Speaker 1: we take your questions, thoughts, comments, all of that. I
Speaker 1: always love the show in the off season because there's
Speaker 1: so much for us to talk about in terms of
Speaker 1: free agency and draft and a lot of potentials. You
Speaker 1: know that instead of breaking down individual games or plays
Speaker 1: or things like that, we get to kind of be
Speaker 1: a little bit more hypothetical and look at the big
Speaker 1: picture here. So as we get people chance to start
Speaker 1: asking some of those questions and tell us what's on
Speaker 1: their mind. I know that we sort of wrote an
Speaker 1: interesting point in the calendar when it comes especially to
Speaker 1: the franchise tag. So tell everybody a little bit about
Speaker 1: the timing of what all is going on at this
Speaker 1: point in the year and when we might know some things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you win the Super Bowl, these things come up
Speaker 1: on you fast. Uh, usually you're writing about in a
Speaker 1: few weeks. This is gonna happen. It's already upon us.
Speaker 1: Yesterday was the beginning of the two week window in
Speaker 1: which teams can use franchise or transition tags. It ends
Speaker 1: on March nine. That always is supposed to end eight
Speaker 1: days before the start of free agency. Obviously, UM free
Speaker 1: agents need some time to plan for free agency based
Speaker 1: upon whether or not they have that tag or not. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, the Buccaneers last year used it on Shack Buried.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that, and just as a reminder, they waited
Speaker 1: until the very last day of that window to actually
Speaker 1: put that tag on officially, which makes sense. You might
Speaker 1: as well just continue negotiating on a possible long term
Speaker 1: deal until the last minute and then that franchise tag
Speaker 1: off and serves as basically a way to extend that
Speaker 1: exclusive window. It didn't work out in terms of getting
Speaker 1: shocked to a long term deal last year. Both sides
Speaker 1: think that had a lot to do with the pandemic
Speaker 1: that just made everything difficult. Uh So now we're back
Speaker 1: needing another contract for Shack, so he's an option, although
Speaker 1: his um his salary would be very high on the
Speaker 1: tag because it would be of what he got last year.
Speaker 1: You got Chris Godwin, Levante, David, a bunch of a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys that could be candidates. And I know
Speaker 1: that Chris God was definitely one a lot of people
Speaker 1: have talked about. And he was on the Pat McAfee
Speaker 1: show yesterday and was asked, of course about free agency
Speaker 1: and all of his decisions and what did it sound
Speaker 1: like in terms of, um, what could happen with him?
Speaker 1: And overall if you just look at this team, you know,
Speaker 1: how many of these free agents do you think it's
Speaker 1: feasible we could keep? And who would the franchise tag
Speaker 1: maybe makes the most sense for well, I think in
Speaker 1: terms of how many we keep, you know, there's twenty
Speaker 1: four free agents. Obviously there's there's a subset that's a
Speaker 1: higher priority, and uh, I think it was maybe on
Speaker 1: a serious show recently coach Arean said that there's six
Speaker 1: guys he didn't say which that are the biggest priority,
Speaker 1: and that they hope they can keep at least five
Speaker 1: of them. Obviously six would be the best, But um,
Speaker 1: I think I probably named most of them there. You
Speaker 1: could probably also throw into that group, Ryan suck Up,
Speaker 1: Leonard for Nett, Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown. Um, I hope
Speaker 1: I didn't forget anybody, and Dominican sue if I didn't
Speaker 1: already say that one. Um, you know the most likely
Speaker 1: guy probably for the tag is Chris Godwin. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he said a number of things that, frankly, is what
Speaker 1: you would expect him to say. Um, he's a he's
Speaker 1: a great player about to get his first big payday,
Speaker 1: which is a big moment in a great player's career.
Speaker 1: And he's also a very smart guy. And he's a
Speaker 1: guy coming off of a world championship that believes this
Speaker 1: is a team that could chase more of them. And
Speaker 1: he said a number of things including, you know, this
Speaker 1: is his chance to get paid and that's what you
Speaker 1: play for, and of course he said that, and he
Speaker 1: also said he likes it here, and he said he
Speaker 1: wouldn't take a little bit more to go to a
Speaker 1: place where he'd be miserable, So you know, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna it doesn't sound like he would just chase the
Speaker 1: absolute highest contract, regardless of where it was. And those
Speaker 1: kind of things I think should give you optimism as
Speaker 1: a Buccaneers fan. And just a reminder everybody, if you
Speaker 1: have questions for us, you can put them any comments
Speaker 1: section of the live video on Facebook. Um, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to hear a little bit about the way
Speaker 1: that this team was structured and we we think of
Speaker 1: it as the individual guys, but are there may be
Speaker 1: positions that would be more important to try to hang
Speaker 1: onto that player based on trying to replace them. You
Speaker 1: know that instead of looking at it as just that
Speaker 1: guy individually, UM, looking at it a little bit in
Speaker 1: that direction. Yeah. I think I might have said this
Speaker 1: before when trying to determine which of these all these
Speaker 1: free agents you most want to get back. You know,
Speaker 1: you got to look at both Lavante and Shack because
Speaker 1: I think they would be difficult to replace. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: Shack sack totals, he missed the last game of the year.
Speaker 1: I think he went down to maybe he went from
Speaker 1: nineteen point five leading the NFL down to eight or
Speaker 1: nine this year, but the peripheral stats like pressures show
Speaker 1: it he was just as good. So you're talking about
Speaker 1: one of the better pass rushers in the league, and
Speaker 1: those are hard to find and we would be very
Speaker 1: difficult to replace. You might feel a little bit better
Speaker 1: about it if you were picking in the top ten,
Speaker 1: even although this isn't a great year for pass rushers,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna be hard to find a guy that
Speaker 1: you would really expect to be as impactful as as
Speaker 1: Shack at pick number thirty two, and then Lavante David,
Speaker 1: you know a player there. There are some good linebacker
Speaker 1: prospects in the draft, but I I know you want
Speaker 1: to try to win the Super Bowl again this year,
Speaker 1: and I'd be hard pressed to expect you could find
Speaker 1: a guy that's as good as Lavante to step in.
Speaker 1: I think by the end of the year it was
Speaker 1: pretty clear that having Lavonte and Devin White together, they're
Speaker 1: probably the best inside linebacker do in the NFL. Was
Speaker 1: really what was driving how good that defense was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I completely agree with that. Um and Justin had asked,
Speaker 1: who do you think is open for restructuring? So let's
Speaker 1: kind of pair that with a question just overall about
Speaker 1: the salary cap situation. What we know because I think
Speaker 1: since our last show is maybe when the league was
Speaker 1: coming out saying a little bit more about what the
Speaker 1: salary cap number would even be. So what do we
Speaker 1: know about that situation now? Well, what they did was
Speaker 1: they agreed, the union and the and the league agreed
Speaker 1: to raise the floor the lowest possible thing that the
Speaker 1: salary cap would be this year to one or an eighty,
Speaker 1: which is down almost twenty million from last year, and
Speaker 1: that that's an unprecedented situation, and we all know the
Speaker 1: reason why. But when teams are planning, they look at
Speaker 1: the last however many years, and every year the salary
Speaker 1: cap has gone up by a pretty decent margin. So
Speaker 1: when you're planning before this pandemic it's and everything changes,
Speaker 1: you're kind of expecting that again. So it would have
Speaker 1: gone from maybe to ten or something, so it could
Speaker 1: be as many as thirty million less than one a
Speaker 1: team expected a little over a year ago, um, And
Speaker 1: so that's obviously gonna make things more difficult. And that's
Speaker 1: why I think you're gonna see a lot of teams
Speaker 1: having to do some restructuring this year, and probably it's
Speaker 1: a popular strategy, even more so than usual, because the
Speaker 1: basic concept of restructuring a guy's contract, which usually usually
Speaker 1: involves taking a salary that he's gonna get paid during
Speaker 1: that year and converting into into a bonus that he
Speaker 1: gets right then, and bonuses are then pro raded over
Speaker 1: the remaining length of the contract. So you can take
Speaker 1: a guy given the same amount of money, but it
Speaker 1: makes much less of a cap hit this year, But
Speaker 1: you're kicking the can down the road and you're gonna
Speaker 1: take that cap hit at some point. But in this situation,
Speaker 1: with the cap going down this year and hopefully going
Speaker 1: back up next year and then maybe going back up
Speaker 1: by a lot in two, it kind of makes some
Speaker 1: sense to kick the can down the road a little
Speaker 1: bit and try to spread out those those impacts. So
Speaker 1: I don't really have a good list of who the
Speaker 1: Bucks might do that with and don't really want to speculate,
Speaker 1: but in terms of you, you're looking for players who
Speaker 1: have um a high base salary this year and a
Speaker 1: structure that doesn't involve a lot of guaranteed money and
Speaker 1: dead cap hits. That's a that's a great point. Um
Speaker 1: Samuel asked, are we interested in J. J. Watt or
Speaker 1: is that outside of the capability with the cap? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the only way I could see that is
Speaker 1: if the Bucks didn't pursue in order we're able to
Speaker 1: keep guys like um Shack Barrett and Dom Kitsu. And
Speaker 1: I do believe that our focus is going to be
Speaker 1: on our guys first. And you know, Jason led and
Speaker 1: Mike Greenberg and Jackie Davidson and all them, they're going
Speaker 1: to get creative if they need to with contracts and
Speaker 1: and the salary cap and find a way to make
Speaker 1: it work. But that doesn't change the fact that there's
Speaker 1: not a ton of wiggle room. The Bucks don't have
Speaker 1: a ton of wiggle room to start uh free agency,
Speaker 1: And if they're trying to get five of those guys back,
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's not gonna be easy. So it kind
Speaker 1: of makes it a very tight window to try to
Speaker 1: bring in a guy like J. J. Watt, who may
Speaker 1: not get exactly what he was supposed to get as
Speaker 1: a salary for the the Texans before they agreed to
Speaker 1: let him go, but he's probably still expecting a pretty
Speaker 1: good payday. So and the other thing is you probably
Speaker 1: want to find out if you can get check and
Speaker 1: the dominicansuing those guys back before you would make a
Speaker 1: decision on a J. J. Watt, And by then he
Speaker 1: might have already signed with another team. And uh, Seth
Speaker 1: brought up what do you think happens with O. J. Howard?
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot we can talk about with O. J.
Speaker 1: That in terms of when we think he'll be healthy
Speaker 1: and what his contract situation is him Cam Gronk, you
Speaker 1: know how how that could look moving forward, do we
Speaker 1: do we have all of them, keep all of them
Speaker 1: just kind of overall? What do you see is how
Speaker 1: O J. Howard would affect whatever that position group is
Speaker 1: going to look like. Well, the first thing to keep
Speaker 1: in mind is the Buccaneers did pick up his defier option.
Speaker 1: They had to make that decision last year, before his
Speaker 1: fourth season, and they did. Uh and to me, you know,
Speaker 1: in conscious to say contract contract, asked to say like
Speaker 1: a Vernon Hargraves, where they didn't picking up O J's
Speaker 1: contract for the fifth year, which doesn't mean they have
Speaker 1: to keep him. It just guaranteed it for injury. You
Speaker 1: can still release or wave of Oji hard if you
Speaker 1: want to. I'm not suggedisting that would happened. But my
Speaker 1: point being, they did pick up that option, and they
Speaker 1: had at that point, I believe, already traded for Rob Gronkowski,
Speaker 1: so they still saw the value in having both of
Speaker 1: those guys. I thought in the early part of last
Speaker 1: season it looked really good having Gronk and o J. Together.
Speaker 1: It looked to me like OJ was gonna have a
Speaker 1: big year until he had the Achilles injury. Now, the
Speaker 1: fact that he had the injury in Week four. It
Speaker 1: was devastating at the time, and we all felt terrible
Speaker 1: for him, but at least it was early in the season,
Speaker 1: which meant he could immediately have the surgery and start
Speaker 1: his rehab and hopefully be ready for the start of
Speaker 1: the season, because that's a pretty and achilles injury to kill.
Speaker 1: His tendon injury is a tough one to come back
Speaker 1: from takes a while, So I think he should be
Speaker 1: ready to go, And I think that the Bucklers would
Speaker 1: like to see what he and Gronk could do on
Speaker 1: the field together over a longer term. And then do
Speaker 1: you feel like with Cam rate and what we saw
Speaker 1: this year with him, you know how that affects do
Speaker 1: we do? Are all three of them? You know, people
Speaker 1: we want to have back and against salary cap situations
Speaker 1: of just you know, keeping everybody is that is at
Speaker 1: a group where you feel like a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Of course, last year we're speculating about trading one of
Speaker 1: them because it was such a just insane amount of
Speaker 1: riches at that one position. But then of course we
Speaker 1: saw that one guy gets hurt, and boy, you really
Speaker 1: needed both Cam and Gronk for that Super Bowl run. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's your final point. There is probably where
Speaker 1: I would have started. It does, though you do have
Speaker 1: to factor in the salaries. I mean, Cam is making
Speaker 1: a pretty good salary. Um, Gronkowski would probably be making
Speaker 1: a pretty good salary if he signs again for say
Speaker 1: one year. O J's fifth year contract option does bump
Speaker 1: up his his rookie salary quite a bit, so you
Speaker 1: would be devoting a lot of salary to that position.
Speaker 1: And like we said, it is tight, so I guess
Speaker 1: it depends on how tight it becomes if the Buccaneers
Speaker 1: can afford to keep all free. But personally, I think
Speaker 1: the the first option when you're when you're trying. Basically,
Speaker 1: the Buccaneers are gonna be in the same mode starting
Speaker 1: this season as they were last year when it was
Speaker 1: clear that they were all in. I think that they're
Speaker 1: going to be all in as much as they can
Speaker 1: to try to win it again this year because they've
Speaker 1: got the team to do it if they can keep
Speaker 1: it together. Absolutely, and Francisco had asked, do you see
Speaker 1: us trading up for anyone in this draft class? Or
Speaker 1: they're going to be people or positions that would be
Speaker 1: worth moving up from thirty two? I would be much more.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be much more likely that the Bucks
Speaker 1: would trade down. And you know, I read an interesting
Speaker 1: piece and it's not my original thought. I think it
Speaker 1: might have been Bill Barnwall of ESPN, but was pointing
Speaker 1: out that, UM, in this uncertain year, when you don't
Speaker 1: have a combine and you don't have as many games
Speaker 1: during the season, you have a bunch of players that
Speaker 1: are top prospects, so even opted out of the season,
Speaker 1: so the last tape you have of them is two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen. Um, it makes you feel like draft picks
Speaker 1: are a lot more uncertain. So you know, probably the
Speaker 1: best idea is to have as many of them as possible,
Speaker 1: because the draft is always a crapshoot, but this year
Speaker 1: it's even a little bit harder to be sure of
Speaker 1: a guy. So the more chances you have at it,
Speaker 1: the better chance you have of hitting on some of
Speaker 1: those draft picks. So UM, you know, some teams will
Speaker 1: probably look at it the other way and say, because
Speaker 1: it's more uncertain, I want to move up and get
Speaker 1: one of the the top prospects. But I kind of
Speaker 1: agree with the other idea that UM, with the even
Speaker 1: greater uncertainty, the best approaches to have as many picks
Speaker 1: as possible. Yeah, I think I would agree with that.
Speaker 1: Um Austin said, I know Brady is returning this next year,
Speaker 1: but at what point do we start thinking about QB
Speaker 1: life after Brady. I think what you do is, if
Speaker 1: you're Jason Light and Bruce Arians is you keep your
Speaker 1: you keep your eyes open, and you're ready to make
Speaker 1: a move anytime one makes sense. But I don't think
Speaker 1: it becomes the top priority yet, particularly when um, when
Speaker 1: uh Jason Light goes on the on the uh Rich
Speaker 1: Eyes and Show and says, Tom Brady's you know there's
Speaker 1: a potential interest and extension, so we may be talking
Speaker 1: a couple of years down the road. So also picking
Speaker 1: thirty second in every round, you know, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: conducive to getting UH top blue chip prospect. And you know,
Speaker 1: how long if you're going to get a guy nowadays
Speaker 1: in the NFL, how long if you take a quarterback
Speaker 1: that's you want to be your quarterback in the future,
Speaker 1: how long do you really want him to sit on
Speaker 1: the bench? Right It seems to me to make more
Speaker 1: sense to continue to right now at least to have
Speaker 1: veteran backups to Tom Brady all right, And then we
Speaker 1: had a question of from Jasper about what do you
Speaker 1: think would be the best position to draft for this year?
Speaker 1: And of course there's a few different ways you can
Speaker 1: take that in terms of just the strength of the
Speaker 1: draft or the highest need for the Bucks. So if
Speaker 1: you can either pick one of those or both of
Speaker 1: those would are they the same? Are different? In your mind? Well,
Speaker 1: the need, the biggest need for the Buccaneers is probably
Speaker 1: going to be determined by what happens in the next
Speaker 1: few weeks and months in free agency. So if you
Speaker 1: lose Jack Barrett, I think it's pretty clear that edge
Speaker 1: rusher is probably your biggest need, because this is not
Speaker 1: a roster with a lot of glaring needs. If you
Speaker 1: can't if you could assume the return of all of
Speaker 1: these guys, there isn't a position where the Buccaneers are
Speaker 1: really really lacking him. Last year was very very clear
Speaker 1: that they needed another offensive tackle. We all knew that,
Speaker 1: we mocked it in every single draft and they made
Speaker 1: sure it happened. This year, not so much. And like
Speaker 1: for instance, the entire offensive line is is signed for
Speaker 1: next year, so starting line that is so uh that
Speaker 1: Or if you were to losing Dominican sue. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe some interior line depths would make a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: you know, because also Nacho and Steve McClinton are free agents,
Speaker 1: So depending on what happens with all those guys, I
Speaker 1: think those two positions could end up being the biggest
Speaker 1: needs just in terms of numbers. All right, well, that
Speaker 1: is going to do it for us on this edition
Speaker 1: of Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thanks as
Speaker 1: always for joining us and for those amazing questions, and
Speaker 1: we'll be back here next week.