It appears the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback situation heading into the offseason is more figured out than we’ve been led to believe.
The offseason has barely even started and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have already swung from one end of the quarterback pendulum and back again.
With Kyle Trask being the only quarterback under contract, and Tom Brady retired, it’s truly the dawn of a new era under center for the Bucs. The big question has been who will be the one to take over and lead the team into a new era.
Names like Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, and even Justin Fields have been kicked around as potential options this offseason. Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Michael Penix Jr. could all be in consideration as guys to draft next year, but it sounds like the Bucs are content with heading into the season with none of those quarterbacks in their plan.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Darlington, everything he’s hearing suggests the Bucs will be rolling with Kyle Trask as the team’s Week 1 starter.
“From my conversations with the organization, they do feel like Kyle Trask is likely to be the guy under center. I feel pretty confident they’re going that direction”, Darlington said. “Whether that’s due to some salary cap concerns because they did go all-in on Tom Brady the last couple of years to try and build around him, and now they have to pay a little bit of that price.”
That caveat seems to be a pretty important factor in any discussion about Trask being the starter in 2023. It would be wise for the Bucs to at least see what they have in him so they can plan the future accordingly next offseason.
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Trask is the only guy in the room, though, so anything the Bucs say about the position is going to be exclusively about him. That being said, it sounds like the team is going the extra mile to make the case that Trask is their guy for reasons other than method of deduction.
“Jason Licht is never going to just lay down by any means, but I think he also believes Kyle Trask has what it takes to be a winner in this league and he looks around the division and says ‘we have the best quarterback in the division, at least’,” Darlington said, before adding a very important clarification. “Not saying it means much, but I think they can at least be competitive with Kyle Trask.”
Again, it would be extremely wise of the Buccaneers to roll with Trask for the duration of 2023 and see how he performs in Dave Canales’ offense and in the role of starting quarterback. There’s quite literally no other way to see if he’s the guy than to throw him into the fire, and it would naturally put pressure on him to succeed now or take himself out of the conversation later.
Going the bridge route would indicate the Buccaneers aren’t going to invest in another quarterback anytime soon and are tethering themselves, barring getting the No. 1 pick in 2024, to Trask.
It sounds like that’s a future the Bucs are comfortable accepting.