Buccaneers: 5 players to watch at Reese’s Senior Bowl
By Rob Leeds
A project successor for the Buccaneers at quarterback
Jamie Newman, QB, Wake Forest
Jamie Newman’s name on here instead of Kyle Trask or Mack Jones is bound to upset some people. Jones and Trask were Heisman finalists; how are they not the focus of the Senior Bowl instead of the guy who opted out of the season?
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Trask is going to be a harsh lesson to one NFL fandom. Massive numbers in college with phenomenal targets and teams tend to over-inflate a player in the eyes of the draft world, and evaluating players on skill and talent rather than stats leaves Trask much lower on the list.
Jones is a better talent than Trask, but he will likely be off the board before the Buccaneers decide to take a chance on their future.
Two teams will almost assuredly overpay for these players in the earlier rounds, but the Buccaneers should stay far away. Their arm talent and style of play are not long for a starting job in the NFL, and the Bucs will need to be creative when finding their replacement for Tom Brady.
The free-agent market should be deep for the Buccaneers when Brady does decide to move on, but taking a chance in the draft on a player with a unique talent set is an excellent way to plan ahead.
Jamie Newman is still raw, but he has the tools to be the better NFL quarterback than Jones or Trask. Newman is mobile when he needs to be (a growing importance in an NFL quarterback, thank you Lamar Jackson), shows decent arm talent, and has the accuracy to grow into a starting quarterback in the NFL.
Newman won’t come off the board early, but a decent showing during the Senior Bowl could make him stand out as a great mid-round option for a team that is looking for a project quarterback to grow into an NFL star.
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