Bruce Arians needs to hold a higher standard for the potential options to be the next Buccaneers quarterback.
Are y’all tired of hearing about Blaine Gabbert starting for the Buccaneers yet? If you aren’t, you’re gonna get there soon enough. Don’t worry.
To some of us, the Gabbert discourse is terrifying. The prospect of winning a bad division just to say you won it and not being in contention in the playoffs might be worse than losing every game in the regular season.
At least the loser teams get better draft picks.
Finishing at .500 or right near it might be the worst place in the football world to be; just look at the difference between the Bengals and any team from the NFC East. There is a reason why that division struggles so much in the playoffs.
Regardless, Bruce Arians has some faith in Gabbert, and it wouldn’t be so concerning to us if his argument made any sense.
Bruce Arians is not dismissing Blaine Gabbert as the team's starting quarterback in 2022 https://t.co/qCwcYQ6ShQ pic.twitter.com/0rmubmYXQu
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) February 23, 2022
Arians cited two things that make us wonder, but the first at least tracks logically.
Gabbert did play under terrible circumstances over his years in the league, but so too did how many quarterbacks? Arians has seen plenty of guys dealing with turnover during his career, and even coached one with his current team in Jameis Winston.
If Winston didn’t get the benefit of the doubt when the upside was obviously there, why didn’t Gabbert? And don’t say that Winston never showed upside; at least he could throw for more than 12 touchdowns over a 14-game stretch.
The second part of the quote is what makes the least sense. This would be the best team that Gabbert ever played on? Well, duh. The same could be said of about 100 quarterbacks in the league right now. Should we ignore all of their histories due to bad teams or situations? Absolutely not.
Teddy Bridgewater has at least been a serviceable starter before. Wouldn’t this be the best team he has been on? Sticking with the Jags for Gabbert, What about Gardner Minshew? Jameis Winston?
This would be the best team that most of the guys that are available have played with, so pretending that this is a justification for ignoring the clear red flags with Gabbert’s career is painfully misguided.
We are seeing coach-speak at work here, folks. And this probably won’t be the last time we see it in regards to a questionable player this offseason either.
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