Tampa Bay Buccaneers need to get ahead of recent allegations
By Rob Leeds
There are now two people accusing the Buccaneers of promising to draft players and then not doing so. Tampa would be wise to act quickly.
During the “deadzone” of the football year, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Something that was small and likely happens throughout the NFL that is not isolated to the Buccaneers is now going to distract from what is about to come.
However, here were are, and the Bucs still don’t look great in this situation.
Lewis Cine and Whitney Holtzman, a recent draft pick and an NFL agent, have both accused the Buccaneers of promising to draft players if they were available and then failing to do so in the last 24 hours.
Before anyone loses their mind, this is not a crime or anything that needs to be punished. But the NFL is a business, and telling people that you are going to do one thing if presented with the option and then doing something else is bad business.
The league is built on trust between players and the organizations. Things like this made it harder for players to trust teams.
It is because of this that it is absolutely in Tampa’s best interest to get ahead of this and make a very simple statement.
From the outside looking it, the Bucs seemed like they thought Cine would be available at the start of the second round and they received a great offer to make it back into the first that they never anticipated receiving.
They wanted Cine, made it clear that they wanted him, but gambled and missed.
This is likely what happened, and it is obvious that nothing nefarious was going on. Gambles don’t work all the time, and owning up to this shouldn’t be difficult.
The Buccaneers just have to do this before it starts to get out of control. The headlines will essentially write themselves with the way that the national media seems to hate the Bucs, and anyone getting the impression that this franchise doesn’t care about the dignity of the draft or the prospects would be wrong.
This might end up being a non-story, but two people speaking up could lead to more as it starts to get more attention. Hopefully the Bucs can tell the very easy and likely very rational reason as to why they changed their minds.
The NFL is a business and no players should every take promises to heart during such an unpredictable process, but the Bucs probably shouldn’t make promises that they know they can’t keep.
Related Story. Buccaneers made the right decision despite misleading player. light
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