Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Three veterans that could be replaced
By Rob Leeds
The addition of Rob Gronkowski may have been a bigger surprise than signing Tom Brady. The Bucs shocked everyone with this trade, and now they have the best tight end trio in the entire NFL.
Given their use of 12 personnel sets, the Bucs will almost always have two tight ends on the field at any given time, but the duo will now look different in 2020.
Even though he took a year off from football, one has to assume that Gronk will still be one of the two starters. O.J. Howard and Cameron Brate are both talented, but it is difficult to make a convincing case to take reps away from the newest addition.
With Howard being the more-complete option, the Bucs will likely make him and Gronk the starters, with Brate being relegated to the third role.
This is less of a slight against Brate and is more praise towards Gronk, but the body of work makes this mostly a no-brainer. Gronk and Howard are both complete tight ends in every sense, and both are far better at blocking than Brate, something that Bruce Arians values.
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Brate will still be on the field in 2020, and perhaps more so now due to COVID, but fans should expect Gronk to fully step into that second role early on into the season.