Somewhere, Joe’s good friend Justin Pawlowski of WDAE-AM 620 must be jealous.

Jason La Canfora of the NFL Network unearthed a story that Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik has been querying player agents to get a better read on preparing the Bucs in-house mock drafts.

A team spokesman said the Bucs are using direct agent projections as just one aspect of cross-checking prospects and ascertaining where players will be selected, and did not want to discuss other components of the process for strategic reasons.

“Essentially, this exercise is one of a few valuable cross-checking methods that enables us to track draftees as thoroughly and accurately as possible,” Buccaneers director of communications Jonathan Grella said by email. “One of its benefits is to identify disparities between our evaluations and others’ assessments. So if a gap exists between our range and others’, we’re able to explore further.”

Several prominent agents said they had not previously been asked to take part in a process such as this to this degree. The Bucs said this is not the first year they have utilized this practice. The team lauded general manager Mark Dominik for being “forward thinking” and “innovative” in his approach to draft preparation. Communication between agents and executives is nothing new, but the formal way in which the Bucs are conducting the process is somewhat unique, agents said.

This just reinforces what came to Joe’s mind when Dominik called in Brandon Carter before last spring’s draft. Carter, a guard at Texas Tech, in three years had not allowed a sack against either manbeast Ndamukong Suh or eventual Bucs defensive tackle Gerald McCoy.

Dominik, in part, brought Carter into a private workout to pick his brain as to who was a better defensive tackle and why.

The aforementioned examples are evidence Dominik is driven to leave no stone unturned in order to pull in the best players his staff can.