Buccaneers debut disappointing for important player

While the final game of the regular season didn’t matter all that much for the Buccaneers, seeing Kyle Trask in a real game was important.

There usually isn’t all that much to be excited about in the final game of the season for a team that isn’t playing for anything. Most fans just cross their fingers and hope key players don’t get hurt if they’re on the field. This was mostly the case for the Buccaneers in their final game of the regular season, but there was an important added layer in getting to see Kyle Trask play for the first time.

Trask has been a hot topic with Bucs fans for two years now after the team used a valuable draft pick to bring in a guy that had a legitimate chance to come in and compete for the face of the franchise after Tom Brady. This young quarterback doing well is going to be very important for several key members of the Buccaneer staff.

Sure, there have been practices and plenty of moments during the preseason, but those reps are very different from the ones we saw yesterday.

Trask got to play against a defense that has real talent for the first time in his professional career, and the results were disappointing, even if you have to take this worth a grain of salt due to the young quarterback being on the field with a number of third-string players for the Bucs.

In this game, the final stat line for Trask was 3/9 for 23 yards. Still, stats without context mean nothing, and fans can’t use this as the only way to judge this performance.

The completions weren’t all that much to be excited about. Routine throws with some safe dump outs involved don’t do much to get fans off their feet, but there were also some aggressive shots mixed in there as well.

The refs missed one obvious pass interference call on a perfectly-thrown ball from Trask, a play that should’ve made that final stat line look nicer. There was also another play that should’ve drawn the same penalty, although the ball was thrown behind a receiver that had nothing but green grass between him and the touchdown.

That stat line could’ve looked much nicer than it did, but that isn’t what makes an NFL quarterback. The issues that showed up in this game were the same ones that were seen in the preseason and in Trask’s college tape, issues that don’t translate well to success in the league.

Kyle Trask doesn’t have the arm for the NFL. The zip and the distance that are even present on passes from Tom Brady at his age don’t show up when Trask is on the field. The accuracy was mostly there (despite the misleading stat line), but receivers losing their open window due to defensive backs having extra time to make a play is dangerous.

None of this is to say that the system was perfect yesterday or an exact indication of what Trask is able to do, but it does say a lot about the team needs to do in regard to the quarterback position going forward. The Bucs need quarterbacks to compete for the role. Kyle Trask will get that chance, but no one should be on him winning that job for the future.

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