Dave Canales reveals his plan for Kyle Trask heading into 2023 season
By Josh Hill
New Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales revealed his plans for developing Kyle Trask into a starting quarterback.
Now that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have filled their offensive coordinator vacancy, it’s time to get to work. First and foremost, Dave Canales needs to find an answer to the question of what the Bucs will do at quarterback this season.
Specifically, who is going to be the starter and what’s the plan for the future?
Right now Kyle Trask is the only quarterback under contract, which is a fact that has been hammered into the ground over the last few weeks. Since Tom Brady’s retirement, and arguably even before that, there has been increasing uncertainty about what the plan is at quarterback moving forward. With little cap space and an important position to take care of, the default has slowly started to become leaning toward Trask being the starter in 2023 if for no other reason than to see if he’s the guy who can be the franchise quarterback of the future.
It’s not exactly a dream scenario for anyone, as Trask has only 10 snaps since being drafted two years ago and the Bucs turning to him because he’s the only guy left isn’t exactly a Main Character moment.
Regardless of the context, Canales is looking at Trask as a guy who is going to develop into the Bucs future starter until he gives him a reason to no longer believe that’s possible.
Dave Canales comments on the future of Kyle Trask in Tampa Bay
During his first press conference since being hired, Canales commented on what his plan for Trask was as he enters his first offseason as offensive coordinator.
“The thing that we’re going to help Kyle continue to build on here is to just be a point guard. Point guards don’t have to be the one to score all the points – you just distribute. Play on time, get the ball out of your hands, life is better that way when you do that,” Canales said. “You’ve got these bears chasing you and if you don’t like bears chasing you, get rid of the ham – and that’s the football, right? So just teaching him those principles, allowing him to be a distributor.”
That’s huge for a number of reasons, not the least of which is it’s probably the most a coach has talked about Trask in two years. But more seriously, Canales isn’t getting caught up in the speculation about who might be the Bucs quarterback and is solely focused on who is — which might be a situation created by default but isn’t stopping him from trying to mine for gold.
Next. Bucs should absolutely call Bears about a Justin Fields trade. dark
Canales has a history of getting the best out of the players he works with, most notably coaching Russell Wilson to two Super Bowls and Genno Smith to Comeback Player of the Year.
It’s his work with Smith that should stand out to Bucs fans and resonate after hearing the type of groundwork he’s laying for Trask. The engine that drove Smith’s narrative last year was that everyone completely forgot he was still in the NFL, and it seemed like his time had come and gone without much happening. Trask hasn’t quite been on that journey yet but he’s proven to be a late bloomer everywhere he’s been, which seems to align with the sort of development Canales helped Smith with in Seattle.
It’s asking a lot for Trask to have a season like Geno Smith had when he’s barely played more than what amounts to a single successful offensive series. But hearing that Canales has a plan for Trask is the first step toward seeing if the Bucs don’t have to search for a quarterback of the future because they already have him on the roster.