When our Bucs Nation reporter reached out to Bus owner & GM Big H for his comment on the offseason and draft….. He graciously accepted to share his in depth thought about offseason but also agreed to do two more article for Bucs Nation – Week of Draft in Bucs board room & Final outlook of upcoming season.
Big H’s analysis of the Offseason……
Day after the season end Buc’s I spent a week long session to analyze - players, coaches and front office. Here is my notes that I put together
Bucs were stuck as decent team in the toughest division in NFL but were not build to win the division and to top it off was over the Salary Cap with some coaches in the wrong positions.
We needed to hire Associate GM who can help manage salary cap and move coaches around and hire some new ones. So I decided to go out and get Rich McKay to join as the Assoc GM plus added Tim Ruskell to run the Scouting for Bucs.
We needed to purge some salary off our books … especially given that we had 7 picks in first 2 rounds of the draft on top of being over the Cap.
We had full intention to retain our Head Coach, DC & DL coach but we reviewed every other coaches in the team. We wanted to give our HC chance to put together his own staff specially to breathe life into our anemic offense. I along with Rich & our HC made the decision to bring in completely new offensive staff and move our RB to LB coach. We went out and hired Phil Goodson as the our new GM based on the success he saw working with Bengals QB.
Now comes the tough decision Bucs evaluated every position and he my notes I made alongside Rich as we evaluated every position on the Bucs.
QB – Bucs have complete faith in A. Richardson to lead the Bucs to playoff but after talking to him and hiring the new OC they decided to add veteran QB if one is available in the Free Agency.
RB – Bucs made the trade last year to land the #7 pick in the draft after he busted in the training camp with Chargers. He had mix year in terms of the production but Bucs decided to take the wait and watch approach giving him one last chance at redemption but need to make some changes to the depth chart to assure the future direction at position
WR – Team has never able to find the #2 WR alongside their Star WR R. Louie since they traded R. Tucker to Giants, finding #2 & #3 WR will remain Bucs priority this year. R. Louie has been modeled citizen for the Bucs but owner understand his pain of being constantly double and triple team hurting his production.
TE – We sure handed veteran TE to go along side one of the best blocking TE in the game so Bucs are set for short future
LT – Bucs have one of the Best LT in the game and have found the depth by using their budding TE as the backup
LG – Bucs has one of the best LG but need to fine tune the depth at the position who can handle both LG & LT in the pinch if required.
Center – Since the ill-fated trade of Diaz Bucs has been struggling to find the right C but feels that V. Smith their waiver pick up may have couple of season in the tank but they need to add future C soon.
RG – Bucs has one of the best OG in the game plus have a decent back up who can play any position on the line
RT – Bucs needs to trade their veteran stud RT and move to add young tackle to groom him to man right side for years.
DE – Bucs have one of the best starting duo alongside one of the best back up DE in the game. So this is strength of the Bucs.
DT – Bucs were too soft in the middle forcing Bolden to step inside numerous time last year so Bucs will need to address this position this year.
LB – Bucs have been making it work by signing veteran’s LB but this is the position of need and Bucs need to improve the LB crop
CB – Bucs had drafted W. Graham and saw him rise to be one of the best in the league alongside of never aging veteran but depth is needed at this position.
SS – Bucs has been lucky to find veteran Safety every years to keep us moving forward but we need to find the leader who will man the safety position for years to come. This journey also has the need to resign Dubious to provide the continuity to the position.
FS –This is positon of weakness for Bucs and need to be addressed in Draft or Free Agency.
PK / P – Our Punter has been cosistantly good but our Kicker will need his first full camp to improve his chance to be part of future of this team.
KR/PR – This has been area of struggle for Bucs which need to be address pronto.
Overall team was built to be 8-8 so I had big decision on my hand to keep having decent team or tear it apart to build the winner so as the GM & owner I put together the list of core player who will not be traded and decided to build the future winner but by making sure that our team will compete every year till we build the ultimate winner in Bucsland (yes our training facility and stadium is no less than Disneyland for football loving Bucs fans)
Bucs owns 7 pick in first two rounds so we are seriously hoping to improve team while we make some changes to improve Bucs…. No matter how it turns out this will be the offseason that will have long term impact on the Bucs future…….
Bucs will be sharing the Insight into their crazy draft week…in the next article
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Last edited at 3/07/2018 3:00 pm
