NFL writer gives Bucs confusing advice that they really need to ignore
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a team with many needs, as we all know. But what they don't need, is to make dumb decisions that one NFL analyst is suggesting they do, when in reality, it can't happen anyways. After losing Tom Brady, it seems like the glorious days the team and fan base experienced […]
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a team with many needs, as we all know. But what they don't need, is to make dumb decisions that one NFL analyst is suggesting they do, when in reality, it can't happen anyways.
After losing Tom Brady, it seems like the glorious days the team and fan base experienced just two years ago are something that won't happen again for some time. But, that's fine. Every team goes through a rebuilding and or retooling phase. For the Buccaneers, that is what 2023 will likely look like.
A big part of that look will belong to either Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask. Both players are going to battle it out for the starting quarterback gig and it's a low-risk, kinda-high-reward situation that reflects the Buccaneers doing the most with what they had in the form of an awful salary cap situation.
NFL.com's Marc Sessler has a different idea of how the Bucs should approach the quarterback situation, however, and he recently made a confusing suggestion that's also borderline-impossible: He offered up the idea that the team should make a move in order to land a quarterback like Ryan Tannehill or Matthew Stafford, even:
Tampa's busy pitching Baker Mayfield vs. Kyle Trask as a viable quarterback competition in a post-Tom Brady universe. Maybe Trask can play. Maybe there's more to Baker's career than a hot-and-cold quarterback three teams have passed on. Bruce Arians adores Mayfield. The former coach openly lobbied for the Browns' job in 2018 for the chance to guide the quarterback's career. Now an in-house Tampa consultant, Arians has his guy, but the Bucs must advance with eyes wide open. There's talent on this roster inside a winnable division. If it's clear you don't have a quarterback in camp, swinging a trade for Stafford, Tannehill or fill-in-the-blank sends a statement to the team: We're not mailing this in. – Marc Sessler, NFL.com
Sessler's idea won't work because the Buccaneers are still in trouble when it comes to their salary cap situation. Per Over The Cap, the team is a little more than $2.5 million over the salary cap after you factor in how much it costs to sign the draft class.
Tannehill is on the books for $27 million in base salary for 2023. The only way the Buccaneers could manipulate that cap hit would be to give him an extension of two years, which means Tannehill will be 37 entering his third year with the Buccaneers.
Stafford is in a situation where the only benefit the Rams receive from letting him go would be in the form of a post-June 1 trade. In that situation, the Rams create a whopping $1.5 million in cap room. That's obviously not worth letting a guy like Stafford go. Especially when the Rams are trying to rebound from an awful 2022 season. Plus, he's 35-years-old, as well, which is the same age as Tannehill.
The Buccaneers don't need another expensive, older quarterback. Unless they're a quarterback like Brady and we all know that there isn't another quarterback like Brady. That was a special situation and to repeat that process with any other QB in that context is a major mistake that needs to be avoided at all costs.
Success in 2023 can come in different forms, and none of them involve having to have quarterbacks like Tannehill or Stafford. This team may be able to get by on Trask or Mayfield. For all we know, Mayfield could be the guy most thought he would be when he came into the league.
Or, we could see bad quarterback play, and a good enough offense and defense to get the Buccaneers through a weak division that has enough of it's own problems. All of these things are possible, but what isn't really that possible, is going after those two quarterbacks, nor are they logical.
