Speaker 1: Good morning, Buck, sayans, how's everybody doing? Casey Phillips was
Speaker 1: a senior writer and editor Scott Smith. And this is
Speaker 1: where we take all of your thoughts, comments, questions in
Speaker 1: regards to the Buccaneers on Buccaneers Insider Life presented by
Speaker 1: Miller Lte And if you have a question for us,
Speaker 1: make sure you head on over to the Facebook page
Speaker 1: put it in the comments section. That is how I
Speaker 1: will be able to find it to ask it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I know that right now it is so weird, Scott,
Speaker 1: to think about what normally would be happening and things
Speaker 1: that we normally would be talking about that you and
Speaker 1: I would have done about a thousand of these normally
Speaker 1: in the last week from Indianapolis, that the combine typically
Speaker 1: would have been happening this last week and now would
Speaker 1: be pretty much over um. Just talking about the timeline
Speaker 1: of things that we give people a chance to to
Speaker 1: submit some of their questions. What normally is happening this
Speaker 1: time of year, what's happening now in this kind of
Speaker 1: altered reality that we have, and how that's affecting what
Speaker 1: we know and what we don't know across the league
Speaker 1: about things like free agency and the draft and all
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, I think we would have just gotten
Speaker 1: home last day or two from our usual Indianapolis trip
Speaker 1: and missed the place. Huh, I know, right, Who would
Speaker 1: have thought I would miss Indianapolis in February? You know? Um,
Speaker 1: I think you probably would have some more rumors, uh,
Speaker 1: some more reports of teams meeting with agents. And I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about tampering, even though everybody believes that goes on.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about teams meeting with agents of their own players,
Speaker 1: their own potential free agents. I'm sure that is still
Speaker 1: happening in whatever method they want to do. So, I'm
Speaker 1: sure the gears are turning, but we're not really hearing
Speaker 1: very much about it. So um, it feels like the
Speaker 1: calm before the storm right now. Uh. The the deadline
Speaker 1: for franchise tags is six days from now, um, so
Speaker 1: you know, and most of those things probably won't happen
Speaker 1: until close to the deadline. It's definitely a deadline driven business.
Speaker 1: I just feel like we're not really without the combine,
Speaker 1: we don't have the same rumor mill that we normally
Speaker 1: would have right now, which I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: good or bad, but it would be kind of nice
Speaker 1: to be hearing some reports. Yeah, it's probably be good
Speaker 1: for the team and bad for us, because this is
Speaker 1: just what we enjoyed talking about. Um. We had a
Speaker 1: question from Yas who asked, do you see the Bucks
Speaker 1: picking up o J's fifth year option? Um? Which I
Speaker 1: definitely see it because it already happened, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to maybe let us kind of discuss what
Speaker 1: happened with o J. Howard, what his situation is currently. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, if anybody doesn't know what y'all just
Speaker 1: talking about, when you draft a player in the first round, UM,
Speaker 1: the way the c b A works UM is that
Speaker 1: all those players get automatically get four year deals with
Speaker 1: a fifth year team option, with the fifth year salary
Speaker 1: going up quite a bit. But the thing about that
Speaker 1: is you have to choose as a team to exercise
Speaker 1: that option between the third and fourth season. So even
Speaker 1: though so that already happened last like May with OJA Howard,
Speaker 1: the Buccaneers did decide to do that, which is a
Speaker 1: good sign. You know. It means they they thought it
Speaker 1: was important to be able to keep around for a
Speaker 1: fifth year. Absolutely. And then we also had Richard asked
Speaker 1: when will the NFL really least compensation picks for all teams?
Speaker 1: Pretty soon? Pretty soon? Yeah, real soon, probably within the
Speaker 1: next week. I would assume it could be a little
Speaker 1: bit maybe maybe, uh maybe with the way everything is different,
Speaker 1: maybe this is different too, and it's it's taking a
Speaker 1: little bit longer than usual, but that should be pretty soon.
Speaker 1: I I have read, I believe that there's a chance
Speaker 1: the Buccaneers will get a fifth round pick out of it.
Speaker 1: Um the way that it seems hard to believe that
Speaker 1: you could sign Tom Brady and still somehow come out
Speaker 1: on the positive side of it, but the way that
Speaker 1: it works really the first step in conversation picks as
Speaker 1: a simple um comparison, you know, just a map of
Speaker 1: how many you signed and how many didn't, and only
Speaker 1: only a certain number, I mean, only a certain sort
Speaker 1: of agents count. So like Leonard four Nett doesn't count
Speaker 1: against does as an example, so the Buckets really lost
Speaker 1: two players account or three that is, and and gain
Speaker 1: and signed to in Tom Brady and Joe hag So
Speaker 1: there that's the first step. You've got one more, you
Speaker 1: lost one more than you gained. And after that then
Speaker 1: they decide what that one spot is worked so um,
Speaker 1: I think that I think the player that matters for
Speaker 1: us as Brashon Perryman, and it could come back. It's
Speaker 1: like a fifth or six round pick. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, I think I'm gonna get to do an
Speaker 1: interview with Jason light soon, which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1: But I was thinking about just wanting to hear your
Speaker 1: thoughts on how all of the things that have been
Speaker 1: different in this last year are affecting their decision making
Speaker 1: process right now. That you lost a lot of college games,
Speaker 1: scouts weren't able to do a lot of what they
Speaker 1: typically do in terms of visits, you didn't have a combine, um,
Speaker 1: the salary cap is lower. There are just so many
Speaker 1: things that have been different in this last year. What
Speaker 1: do you feel like are some of the biggest things
Speaker 1: that will impact the way they make decisions on what
Speaker 1: free agents you want to keep, How how comfortable you
Speaker 1: feel signing guys to certain contracts or the attempts to
Speaker 1: restructure and there, and who you're gonna target in the draft.
Speaker 1: Do you rely on the draft more or less than
Speaker 1: you know typical years when when you might have a
Speaker 1: lot less tape on some of these guys, I just
Speaker 1: want to hear what do you think are the different
Speaker 1: factors of that will most impact the way they're making
Speaker 1: decisions right now. Well, when you look at some of them,
Speaker 1: some of the top guys available in the draft, a
Speaker 1: lot of them opted out of the college season, So
Speaker 1: you're relying on two thousand nineteen tape and those players
Speaker 1: are probably still just as good, and you've you've you've
Speaker 1: scouted them already, but there you know, you've seen instances
Speaker 1: of a player whose senior year wasn't as good as
Speaker 1: their junior year, and that hurts their draft stock. And
Speaker 1: they're sure there's sure to be some of those guys
Speaker 1: out there. So maybe it's a little bit more of
Speaker 1: a crapshoot. But as we've talked about, the draft is
Speaker 1: already a pretty big crap shoot. And and I I
Speaker 1: throw out the idea last week that may be trading
Speaker 1: down is a good idea for the Buccaneers because if
Speaker 1: you get more picks, you just have more chances to hit.
Speaker 1: If it's if it's harder to hit this year, if
Speaker 1: you want to go with that theory, then you should
Speaker 1: have more options if you if you have more picks,
Speaker 1: you have more chances to hit. Um. The way the
Speaker 1: Buccaneers are set up right now, though, if they can
Speaker 1: get and Jason Light said this when when he spoke
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, if they can keep that
Speaker 1: core intact as much as possible from last team, get
Speaker 1: a lot of these free agents back, they'll hit the
Speaker 1: draft not really needing uh anything really particularly one one
Speaker 1: or two positions that they have to hone in on.
Speaker 1: And you and I have talked about that a lot,
Speaker 1: but to hear him say specifically obviously validates it a
Speaker 1: lot more. Um. You know, he even used the word
Speaker 1: and luxury pick at one point. So if the Bucks
Speaker 1: can succeed in keeping most of their core intact, the
Speaker 1: draft will be interesting. You know. They pick so late
Speaker 1: that it's hard to predict what who could possibly be there.
Speaker 1: But they could go up, they could go down, they
Speaker 1: could hit a lot of different positions. So um, to me,
Speaker 1: that's more than the pandemic and the way that everything
Speaker 1: has been changed. What affects the Bucks in the draft
Speaker 1: more is assuming that they can keep most of his
Speaker 1: core intact, is they don't have as glaring of a
Speaker 1: need as you would normally have. And I was wondering
Speaker 1: with that, um, knowing how many of your guys you
Speaker 1: want to keep that you don't have these glaring needs
Speaker 1: like maybe you haven't in some other years. Um, is
Speaker 1: this the first time that it is kind of nice
Speaker 1: for us that free agency is first that we typically
Speaker 1: talked about how it would be great to like, you know,
Speaker 1: be able you know a little bit more of what's
Speaker 1: out there in free agency than you do the draft,
Speaker 1: and we've typically said, oh, yeah, we really wish that
Speaker 1: we could we could draft first. Um, is this a
Speaker 1: year that you think this actually helps the Buccaneers. Well,
Speaker 1: it definitely will will allow them to go into the
Speaker 1: draft with a good idea if they have blaring needs
Speaker 1: or not, because I all that I just said about
Speaker 1: the Bucks having no glaring needs will be different if
Speaker 1: they lose some of these key free agents. If if
Speaker 1: you were to lose Shack Barrett or Lavante David or
Speaker 1: Chris Godwin or in Dominican Sue, you can see right
Speaker 1: away that one of those positions could easily become much
Speaker 1: more a need. So yeah, it'll it'll be good to
Speaker 1: go into that knowing and really will probably know within
Speaker 1: the next three weeks or so. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: go by what happened last year, the franchise dag came
Speaker 1: down on the last day that you could do the
Speaker 1: franchise tag, which this year would be March nine. Um,
Speaker 1: some of the other guys like Jason Pierre Paul signed
Speaker 1: right before free agency started, and some of them like
Speaker 1: Don mckensoe started or resigned about a week end of
Speaker 1: free agencies. So we're talking about two or three weeks
Speaker 1: if it's anything like last year, where most of this
Speaker 1: will be resolved. And when it comes to the franchise
Speaker 1: tag when you start looking at you know, we we
Speaker 1: do have several guys that it would kind of make
Speaker 1: sense to use it on potentially, or you know, guys
Speaker 1: that you really want to keep, and um, what do
Speaker 1: you think are going to be some of the factors
Speaker 1: of deciding who you franchise tag That it's easy for
Speaker 1: us to all as fans just be like, oh, put
Speaker 1: it on this guy, put it on this guy. But
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot there in terms of what
Speaker 1: the franchise tag would would be, and you know what
Speaker 1: some of your other options are. How deep erre at
Speaker 1: that position, what what do you think are going to
Speaker 1: be the things that lead to them deciding whether to
Speaker 1: use it and who to use it on. I think
Speaker 1: we'll have a lot to do with how negotiations are
Speaker 1: going right now. Um. Jason Light said about the franchise
Speaker 1: tag a week or so, a week or two ago,
Speaker 1: that he couldn't tell you who we might use it
Speaker 1: on because they don't know themselves. And I think that's
Speaker 1: because if you signed LaMonte David well and there's one
Speaker 1: off the board, you don't have to worry about using
Speaker 1: it on, you know, see what I'm saying. So if
Speaker 1: you can get Chris Godlin sign and Lavante David, then
Speaker 1: maybe use it on somebody else. Um. The one guy
Speaker 1: that is a little more complicated is Shack Barrett because
Speaker 1: he just had the franchise tag, So giving him the
Speaker 1: franchise tag again this year means a bump of from
Speaker 1: what he got last year, So getting pretty high up
Speaker 1: there in terms of what he would be getting for
Speaker 1: the year. Um. So you know, in a in an
Speaker 1: ideal world, you'd probably get him signed to some sort
Speaker 1: of long term deal and then if you couldn't get
Speaker 1: the others, you'd have the franchise tag available for say
Speaker 1: Chris Goblin or Lavante David. But every player would prefer
Speaker 1: to get the long term deal, and so hopefully they're
Speaker 1: making some headway in that regard. All right, well, that
Speaker 1: is gonna do it for us on this edition of
Speaker 1: Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for being with us, and we'll see you next time.