“We would have loved to have Ryan on our squad this year,” Schneider said. “You know, unfortunately, great guy, great player, great competitor, and he did a great job working with the staff and the staff did a great job developing him over the last several years. Unfortunately, there is a process to free agency and it’s just the reality of it. There’s different phases, there’s different consequences and you’re always competing as much as you can stay in as many deals as you possibly can, and then figuring out what you can and can’t do. …

“We had to remove the tender for Ryan and he ended up choosing to go to Tampa for what he thought was a better opportunity,” he said. “So we never close the door. You guys have seen that, and he’ll be a free agent next year.”

Joe was very pleased to see how dejected Seahawks fans were on social media after Neal signed with Tampa. And now his old Seattle GM isn’t hiding that his team missed out.

This bodes well for the likely new Bucs starting safety.