One Less Destination For Ben Bredeson
March 4th, 2025
Will the Bucs keep their starting left guard?
That’s more likely after today’s happenings.
ESPN reported today that the Bears are trading a sixth-round pick for Rams big-money left guard Jonah Jackson. That sent cheers through the halls of JoeBucsFan.com world headquarters.
Joe thought the Bears might target Bucs pending free agent Ben Bredeson, Tampa Bay’s 27 year old starting left guard. So now there’s one less team potentially chasing Bredeson, and the free agent guard class is deep.
Joe’s had questions about the Bengals releasing former Bucs guard Alex Cappa yesterday. Cappa was a Bucs third-round pick in 2018 and had a nice career. Heck, he even turned down The Goat three years ago and bolted to Cincinnati for strong money.
No, Joe doesn’t believe the Bucs are interested in Cappa. Bredeson is their first choice, but Joe suspects serious Bucs fans from Mulberry to Madeira Beach know Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht is not going to drop stupid money on Bredeson.
He’s too replaceable for that. And that’s a nod to Licht, not a knock on Bredeson.
March 4th, 2025 at 5:13 pm
Hopefully the Bucs re-sign thei key UFAs before free agency starts. Bredeson may not be the best Bucs’ OLineman, but he was solid and definitely deserves another contract. Would also re-sign Opeta though as insurance, since Hainsey is sure to bolt for greener pastures.
March 4th, 2025 at 5:30 pm
Don’t see any Bucs FA’s inking up yet. What is Licht waiting for.
March 4th, 2025 at 5:43 pm
Make Bowles a free agent.
He’ll remain an unsigned free agent HC.
28-27
March 4th, 2025 at 5:57 pm
Tell Ben he needs to bulk up especially the
lower body as he “got woman handled” by many lineman this last year.
March 4th, 2025 at 5:58 pm
The bungles are cap strapped with their stars… they will draft a guy
March 4th, 2025 at 6:00 pm
Cappa had a bad season in 2025. His ship has sailed into the sunset
March 4th, 2025 at 6:14 pm
There are definite benefits in keeping the band together. Especially an OL group who like each other and love playing together.
March 4th, 2025 at 6:41 pm
Ben takes a lot of knocks here on JBF.com as the weakest link in the O-Line.
Fair enough. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.
But our O-Line was pretty darn good this past season. And Ben played solid.
Imagine how much better it’ll be this upcoming season if we have the same starters.
We need to resign Ben.
March 4th, 2025 at 7:05 pm
Agreed Vanessa, if BB is the weakest link we are doing ok.
March 4th, 2025 at 7:06 pm
Ben was the “weak” link but he still played about average so we should definitely bring him back. I also think he and the rest of the line improve in a second year together.
March 4th, 2025 at 7:25 pm
Alex Cappa is a mediocre back-up at best and the dude plays RG not LG…
He was the 110th rated OG out of 135 OGs and he is on the wrong side of 30.
We got the best few years he had.
Thanks for the memories Alex.
March 4th, 2025 at 7:31 pm
@ Joe
Any word on the progress of OG project Elijah Klein?
If he can gain @ 20 lbs and get some of that majic NFL go-go juice he might be alright…
If, if, if. -Joe
March 4th, 2025 at 7:32 pm
*magic.
lol.
March 4th, 2025 at 7:38 pm
Licht is going to give an offer to Ben’s agent. He’s then going to go say go see what you can get on the open market and let us know. We would love to have you back, but at a reasonable price.
I think that is going to be the way he handles a number of their FAs. Wait and see. We know Hainsey thinks he can be a starter somewhere else. Good for him if he can.
March 4th, 2025 at 7:52 pm
Ben is a middling guard, which is ok. If EVERYone on the line becomes pro-bowl material we’ll never be able to pay them all
March 4th, 2025 at 8:27 pm
Bredison isn’t a young player. He’s a vet. He’s not going to become athletic all of the sudden. He’s ok if you need him in a pinch but he’s not a in the top half of guards in the league. Saying that we won’t be able to pay everyone if they are all top level offensive lineman is possibly the dumbest excuse for not improving. I’ll point you to the Eagles offensive line. There is no other position group where you would keep below average players because ok is good enough. You wouldn’t be happy with one good corner, one good safety, one good receiver, one good DT so why the hell would you be ok with one good guard. We are literally one player away from a complete offensive line. Honestly I feel that Bucs fans don’t know a whole lot about the rest of the league. There are dozens of replacement level guards available. The scheme we run requires athletic guards.
March 4th, 2025 at 8:28 pm
If Bredeson leaves the solution could moving Mauch to LG, signing and giving Hainsey that shot at RG.
March 4th, 2025 at 8:46 pm
What the buc you are spot on. Bucs need atheletic guys at the line if they are continuing to run the same offense as last year. I’m good with keeping him but think they could certainly upgrade there as well either via draft or FA. Licht is $ when it comes to finding out line so we should be patient and trust the man. He obviously knows how to scout his lineman!
March 4th, 2025 at 10:21 pm
@ Joe
LOL!
March 4th, 2025 at 10:30 pm
Sign Bredeson to a 2 year deal. Continuity on the O- line is the way to go. We had an excellent O-line last year. Some fans want instant success—or shake it up, Fire everyone. CHILL OUT. We are 3 players away from being a TOP 5 team.Sign Bredeson.
March 4th, 2025 at 11:22 pm
if they like klein’s progressions…you sign bredeson and maybe not look to resign opeta…
granted i’d like to see them sign both bredeson and opeta…
also a couple solid dudes are lurking on the practice squad if i’m correct…they are also marinating and hopefully getting more fine tuned as wll
March 5th, 2025 at 1:23 am
The oline got plenty of attention the past two years. Don’t break it up and create more need.
Re-sign him. Buy us time to get better next year, and then focus on defense,
On a side note…time has flown by since Cappa left.
March 5th, 2025 at 1:55 am
Ben is not good.
We need elite.
We have 3 great running backs.
We need a mauler. Not a survivor at LG.
March 5th, 2025 at 2:42 am
Everyone and their brother seems to be writing off a few dudes on our O line.
One is Opeta who was quietly the leading candidate over Bredeson and the other is Klien who really has impressed the heck out of me. We also need to at least make an effort to bring Hainsey back! I hear rumors we are shopping for his replacement already. I don’t think we will get the caliber of Hainsey. The dude showed true character last year.
BTW resign Skule as well. After his comically bad initial start last year he improved enough to where I was no longer too worried about him getting Baker killed.
Go Bucs!
March 5th, 2025 at 3:23 am
Agree garro. Opeta & Skule need to be re-signed. Not sure however if any of us know what we have in Klein. He’s a good-sized Guard (6’4″ & 319 lbs) but with only 9 offensive snaps last season he didn’t get much of a chance to strut his stuff.
March 5th, 2025 at 11:21 am
Bucs should draft Zabel out of North Dakota State problem solved.
March 5th, 2025 at 11:31 am
JTHV says you don’t need five pro-bowl caliber players along the O-Line for it to be considered great. Bredeson is a great piece for this unit because his average production, great chemistry, young age and CHEAP contract demands far outweigh his shortcomings of being the next Zack Martin.
At one point last season Baldinger claimed on Baldy’s Breakdown that he thought the Bucs have the best O-Line in all of football.
Why wouldn’t we want to keep that together?
March 5th, 2025 at 11:37 am
The Bears need two guards.
Not anymore. Plus, Bredeson wasn’t going to play right guard.–Joe
March 5th, 2025 at 12:41 pm
Drafting BPA is tough, you have to decide if you trust our D-coordinator and coaches to elevate the play of rookies on that side of the ball. And I’m just not seeing it. So it would be tempting to load up the offense even more. They are going to have to carry us to wins regardless, so we could use starting caliber Offensive depth. And make the D coaches do what they can with lesser talent since they will mostly be riding the Offense’s coat tails anyway.
We do need to fix the D but not sure we have the coaches and leadership to waste . We never made up for the Hall and JTS whiffs, has haunted and held us back. As long as Bowles is the HC and DC our ceiling is lower than it should be with this Offense. Agree with others would love to hear more about Klein.