Bennett Trade May Help Bucs
March 9th, 2019
Step closer to free agency.
The way this Bucs organization wants absolutely nothing to do with Michael Bennett tells Joe he must have urinated in Darcie Glazer Kassewitz’s wastebasket.
It is unbelievable how this organization — not exactly known since Chucky left for having a Fearsome Foursome pass rush — feels about Bennett, who they threw away years ago for no good reason.
Bennett, one of the NFL’s top pass rushers since getting thrown out the door leaving Tampa Bay, will play for his third Super Bowl-winning coach in as many years as the Belicheats acquired him yesterday for loose change found in Bill Belicheat’s washing machine.
So what does this have to do with the Bucs aside from yet another reminder what a kick-in-the-groin it was to throw Bennett to the curb, one of the worst moves made by an organization with a rich history of dumb moves? Well, if the Bucs are proactive and smart enough and really do want to build a strong defensive line, and serious about winning, this trade by the Belicheats for Bennett could have a major impact.
By acquiring Bennett, it sure looks like the Belicheats won’t be serious players in bringing back free agent defensive end Trey Flowers.
Last season, Flowers led the Super Bowl champions in pass disruptions (see below). Yes, it’s safe to ask why would Belicheat not want him. It’s likely a money issue, but still, you telling Joe that Flowers wouldn’t be an upgrade over defensive end linebacker Noah Spence and/or Carl Nassib, who had a career year last year?
New coach Bucco Bruce Arians is on record saying he has no desire to be part of a rebuild. And Joe doesn’t think it’s a stretch to suggest if the Bucs don’t at least have a winning record next year general manager Jason Licht may be gone.
The time for farting around watching good players go elsewhere while you hope Nassib has 12 sacks, or hoping Spence has an epiphany and has seven sacks is over, or at least should be over.
Hope gets you fired. Production gets you a new contract. Flowers has demonstrated he can produce.
It’s fair to suggest Flowers is a product of Belicheat squeezing every ounce of talent out of a guy. Joe wouldn’t argue that. But the Bucs now have Kacy Rodgers as a defensive line coach. His link to Belicheat? Both are Bill Parcells disciples and everywhere Rodgers has coached, he’s had quality production from his defensive line.
Yeah, signing Flowers likely, sadly, means the end of Gerald McCoy in Tampa Bay. He might be done anyway because last week in Indianapolis, Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht refused to say GMC would take another snap for the Bucs.
Take GMC’s cash, give it to Flowers, draft Houston freak Ed Oliver at No. 5 and along with Vita Vea and Jason Pierre-Paul, now we’re talking about a strong defensive line.
This is a quarterback-heavy division, the NFC South. How do you best stop quarterbacks? You hunt them down.
You don’t hunt them down with a linebacker unless he’s an edge rusher, and you don’t hunt them down with a cornerback blitz once or twice a game.
Trey Flowers had 136 disruptions (17 sacks, 57 QB hits, 62 pressures) over the past 2 seasons, including the playoffs.
That’s nearly twice as many as the next closest Pat. Kyle Van Noy ranked 2nd in that stretch w/69 disruptions (nice).
Summary: Pats need to re-sign Flowers.
— Jeff Howe (@jeffphowe) February 7, 2019
March 9th, 2019 at 8:04 am
Market value on sportrac is 15.7 mil
Bucs could have gotten 2 Michael Bennett and then some for that high figure
March 9th, 2019 at 8:07 am
Ha! Love the strike throughs.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:09 am
Until we actually free up some $ I don’t foresee us doing much of anything in FA…
March 9th, 2019 at 8:14 am
Because the Bucs have NO MONEY, Not holding out for any of these players (Flowers, Honey badger, Gipson, Mosely, etc.), who is coming here to win, when we haven’t won. Who is going to give you a discount, just because of links to BA and Bowles? We better hope we hit it right in the draft, coach up the players we got and hope that the reason we are keeping D. Smith, GMC, Dotson because they have more than a desire to finally change this franchise’s fortunes and believe BA can get them there.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:15 am
So…..let’s add Trey Flowers to the Honey Badger & CJ Mosley….perhaps a FA guard….
I think not.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:28 am
I say resign Nassib now the kid is awesome!
March 9th, 2019 at 8:29 am
Why can’t Carl Nassib get a fair shot at the job?
I thought he did a great job even though he missed training camp and came from a completely different system into defensive genius Mike Smith’s program.
It’s amazing that as a young man he didn’t fall apart completely after being cut by the lowly Browns and entering this cluster f*ck.
Just give the guy a fair shot.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:30 am
Plus sign white at 5
March 9th, 2019 at 8:33 am
Nassib! Nassib! Nassib!!!!!
March 9th, 2019 at 8:33 am
FA targets should be, Honey Badger, Sheldon Richardson, Tevin Coleman, Ronald Darby. Those are realistic contracts Bucs can add, but must cut McCoy, Gholston, Urein. Restructure Brate & Anger
March 9th, 2019 at 8:49 am
Beef up the trenches fix the special teams an add pieces to the defense lots of pieces LB DB DL. let’s go Bucs
March 9th, 2019 at 8:49 am
We aren’t rebuilding….we’re coaching up all this existing talent. Besides, we don’t have money to spend on acquisitions…mostly because our roster is already so loaded. Of all the positions, d-line is the least concerning. This team is in boom or bust mode….with a bust coming regardless due to cap casualties. The Bucs aren’t generating enough talent from their drafts to replace the decent players they do have.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:49 am
The question Joe should be asking:
Would the Bucs have released Vinny Curry if they did not intend for Carl Nassib to be the starter?
If an upgrade to DE comes, it won’t be in free agency.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:51 am
Until I see some trades and cuts I will not get excited about any possible free agents.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:53 am
Maybe the only thing worse than a bad football team is an expensive bad football team….
Maybe Licht really thinks it was all coaching.
Unless he unloads some pieces we won’t have the cap room to do anything.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:56 am
QUE5 Says:
March 9th, 2019 at 8:33 am
FA targets should be, Honey Badger, Sheldon Richardson, Tevin Coleman, Ronald Darby.
Are you freaking insane?????? Darby??????
Listen, the only free agent I care about would be Honey Badger. The rest can be young nobodies, since Licht seems to strike gold every year with unknowns. Do the rest in the draft.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:57 am
Nassib is under our control on his rookie contract for two more years. No reason to rush and sign him yet. Let’s see him produce again as a full-time starter.
March 9th, 2019 at 8:58 am
The cuts will come on the eve of free agency. People need to stop freaking out.
But don’t expect any splash FA signings either.
March 9th, 2019 at 9:02 am
This team has no money! I expect in free agency to add one player of any size after DJax is gone. Other than that we hopefully will add a few solid role players.
March 9th, 2019 at 9:07 am
The last thing we need is Darby hooked up with Winston…..are you nuts?
March 9th, 2019 at 9:19 am
I think the DL will be fine unless you can draft one of the top 3, Quonnen, J Allen or Bosa.
They should trade back when the QB draft day frenzy begins on draft day. Then select J Williams, Devin White or Ed Oliver. Then they can get a RB with the extra 2nd round pick they get.
March 9th, 2019 at 9:22 am
We just had a “Trey Flowers” free agent article, yesterday.
I mean, @Joe is talking about he guy like he’s Lawrence Taylor reincarnate, hitting the open market in his 20-sack a season Strahan youth or something?!
The dude will get paid $17mill per over 4-5 years by someone. Ain’t NO WAY in hell is he worth even half of that, he IS a product of Belichick’s coaching personnel tree, and the Bucs’ have NO business spening that kind of money at his position over that many years. None.
He’s just a good LB/DE hybrid. That’s all.
Bending over backwards $$$ is more (objectively) wisely spent on a player-friendly 3 year deal for Lev Bell, for say $14 mill per, with 60% of it fully guaranteed, with player incentives. He would instantly hit the ground running (see what I did there?)..immediately replace and upgrade the David Johnson mold for the BA aggressive offensive system, and help Jameis tremendously by taking a ton of pressure off schematically.
That…is much more productive, larger money spent. Lev Bell. Then sign Z Smith from BAL for a nice attacking LB much cheaper.
Go Bucs! Land Quinnen!
March 9th, 2019 at 9:23 am
Urinated in a lady’s garbage can? Typical scum from jbf. And fact is Bennett got offered a better deal and he chose to not go back to the bucs to see if they’d match it. I don’t blame him. No one threw Bennett out. Howe is still drunk from last night I’d bet.
March 9th, 2019 at 9:26 am
Joe it’s become obvious that you’ve never met a big-name, high-dollar free agent who you didn’t like. Never any talk of PRIORITIES and rarely any talk of COST. One would think you’re at a $5.99 smorgasbord or something … ‘Ya I’ll take 1 DE, 1 DT, 1 MLB plus 2 other LBs, and oh ya a CB and a Safety. Throw in a RG, a RB, a slot WR and a backup QB for dessert, would ya?. You did say that all came to only $5.99 didn’t you? Whatdoyamean plus tax? Sorry, I don’t have that much’.
Bucs are on a No-Beef, No-Fat diet right now. Stay away from the smorgasbords.
I’d challenge anyone to go to the current Bucs’ roster, subtract the FAs to arrive at the ‘under-contract’ group, then figure out which of those are KEEPERS (capable of making the final 53 roster). Next figure out which of those KEEPERS you’d want to START Game 1, which ones would be key ROTATIONAL players, and which would be DEPTH. You might notice quite a few HOLES result from that exercise, varying of course on who you deem to be starter-quality.
March 9th, 2019 at 9:39 am
Nope, trade that 2nd for Dee Ford, draft White, get a Rg/C maybe Bradbury in middle round 2 in a trade up…..sign honeybadger if he isnt too much….boom done.
March 9th, 2019 at 9:53 am
JPP / Nassib / Gholston are all suited for 3-4 DE.
Vea / Allen / Stevie T are 3-4 NT bodies.
McCoy / Nunez-Roches / Unrein fit as the 3-4 DT’s.
Spence is a natural Jack OLB & the only one on the roster IMO.
Gholston / Allen / Unrein / Spence could all be cut & still not = the $ Flowers will demand in FA.
With limited cap space & a draft class flush with DEF studs …Overpaying in FA for a guy like Flowers, just doesn’t make scene….Nor did trading for Bennett (in age 34yr), for exact same reasons…Especially given that there’s a near 100% chance 1 of J.Allen/Sweat/Burns will be setting there at #5.
Additionally, due to the DEF depth of this draft class…There will be DEF STUDS slide to day 2…. (With GMC back for 2019…Woudn’t this yr be the yr to roll-dice on a guy like Jeffery Simmons in the 2nd/3rd, if he slips due to ACL recovery making him a likely scratch for 2019??)
March 9th, 2019 at 11:02 am
I love how the Joes turned this into another circle jerk for Flowers. WHO WE CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY BTW!? Jesus F. Christ!
March 9th, 2019 at 11:16 am
Bonzai
If you say “don’t expect any splash free agent signings” then I would say don’t expect any playoffs for the Bucs this season.
If the Bucs want to make any sort of impact this season, an elite player in free agency is needed. But I wouldn’t expect them to cause Licht sucks.
March 9th, 2019 at 11:49 am
First off better sign Nassib to extension while he’s still fairly inexpensive. I don’t think with the cap situation the Bucs will do much in FA. To listen to Licht & BA they have a playoff team with the players they have. (HA Ha) With that kind of thinking they won’t even reach 500. Licht should have gone bye bye with Koetter & the other coaches.
March 9th, 2019 at 12:00 pm
@Bucs Bozai
Are u insane?? You can’t bank on Licht draft picks and free agent young no bodies! Where has that gotten us?? Gotta get away from that mediocre mentality. Smh
March 9th, 2019 at 12:37 pm
The Bucs “splash FA signing” already happened: Bruce Arians.
And, yes, I think he will have a material impact.
March 9th, 2019 at 2:29 pm
Why does anyone make a friendly deal with the evil empire? Any number of teams would give you a 5th rounder for Bennett & a 7th.
March 9th, 2019 at 3:23 pm
The grass ALWAYS looks greener in the other pasture.
JPP is the guy to pile up individual sacks. The rest can come from a combination.
Spence had 5.5 sacks his rookie year with a bum shoulder. Hopefully that shoulder is totally healed and playing with Bowles defense Spence can find his rookie production at MINIMUM.
Perhaps he adds 7 sacks
Nassib playing in what was virtually his rookie year at least in terms of his first real opportunity totaled 6.5 sacks. Is there any reason to believe a guy with his motor and motivation can’t at least match that?
We KNOW what we have in these two guys. Together at different times in their careers they have combined for 12 sacks.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that more effective use of both of them by Bowles could produce 15-17 sacks.
If we must come up with a big name DL then do it in the draft although I prefer White.
White is 15 lbs larger than Kwon…he’s more than a half second faster in the 40. Kwon is too expensive for his size and talent and a torn ACL. Drafting White saves us a LOT of $$ and puts a better, larger, faster player right in the middle of Bowles D.
There are so many solid DL prospects perhaps it’s time to move up for once instead of down if the right guy hangs around long enough late in the first round. If we traded McCoy perhaps we could package a couple of picks to get his replacement in the draft. No Kwon and no McCoy and no DJAX provides instant large cap relief. That’s before we even discuss Brate who may need to be traded for that extra pick(s) to use to trade up, or Hump who we may be forced to let go to save cap dollars.
Bottom line for me…like a lot of guys…especially TBBF I think we need to consider our cap position. Good draft picks playing on rookie contracts are CHEAP. They can also be very GOOD if we draft wisely.
OK let the arguing begin as to whether Licht can draft wisely. Whether BA will insure a solid draft.
March 9th, 2019 at 11:05 pm
On board with Carl Nassib–he is young and knows how to dig when needed.