“It’ll Keep Revolving Until We Find The Guy”
December 9th, 2014
Bucs GM Jason Licht
Don’t accuse Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht of relaxing in his new gig. The Bucs have engaged in more transactions than a Publix cashier this season.
And Christmas shopping madness won’t slow things down.
Licht joined iconic Bucs play-by-play voice Gene Deckerhoff on Sunday to talk about the Solomon Patton re-acquisition, another attempt to give the Bucs a return man fans can savor.
“It’s been a revolving door, that position this year. That’s for sure. And it’ll keep revolving until we find the guy that we need, that’s going to be the future there,” Licht said on the Buccaneers Radio Network. “Hopefully, it’s Solomon. It may not be. But we’re going to keep looking. We’ve made a lot of roster moves this year. I don’t know if we lead the league in them; I’m pretty sure we probably do. We’re looking for those and we’re gonna keep doing it until we find players who can help us.”
Yes, the Bucs cut Patton in October, but that didn’t mean the Bucs were down on the undrafted rookie, Licht explained.
“He can run and he’s a tough little guy,” Licht said of Patton. “We liked him when we had him. We ideally thought that he needed some time to develop and wasn’t quite ready. And so we released him and were going to put him on the practice squad, but then Arizona came in and got him. We went and got him again when Bobby [Rainey] had some injury concerns last week. So we went out and got him.
“It’s his job to lose now.”
It seems like Patton still has the returner job after an uneventful game in Detroit. The Bucs haven’t made any roster moves today.
Licht also shared a nugget that every marginal, young NFL player should heed.
“I’m glad [Patton] shook our hands and was polite on the way out the door [in October]. Otherwise, he might not be here,” Licht said.
Yes, good manners are important at One Buc Palace.
December 9th, 2014 at 4:14 pm
And Michael Spurlock is on the streets.
What we need is a real GM to keep Lovie in check this offseason.
December 9th, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Can’t wait til we draft Scherff with the third overall pick. I won’t be upset if they take Hundley in the second and let him compete but preferably sit a year. We are three yrs at least from being a contender.
December 9th, 2014 at 4:22 pm
Good luck Solomon. Rooting for you to step up your game and do well. I thought you showed some promise when you were returning early in the season.
Just always remember that the #1 job you have is to look the ball into your arms and secure it well before you look upfield to decide where to run. Do this every time and the rest will take care of itself and some long plays will open up for you.
I like Licht’s statement as well – “we’re gonna keep doing it until we find players who can help us.” – Keep it up Jason. Good job on finding and signing a player like Jacqueis Smith. Now do your homework better on next year’s so called big name free agents and for God’s sake – don’t be including a bunch of guaranteed $ in future Free Agent’s contracts. Find other ways to incentivise them. All guaranteed $ should be in the 1st year of a contract with very nice performance incentives thereafter.
December 9th, 2014 at 4:26 pm
@gatrbuc17
Did you find what you were looking for?
December 9th, 2014 at 4:33 pm
“it’ll keep revolving until we find the guy”
– Hopefuly the Glazers on the Hc and GM
December 9th, 2014 at 4:39 pm
I listened to that interview on game day and my first thought was Licht was refreshing honest. I wish Gene had asked a couple of other questions and gotten honest answers:
“Jason, you blew out 4 of the 5 starting OL from last year. Somehow, you managed to replace them with worse players. How did you do that?”
“Last year, the Glazers fired a coach and GM who went 4-4 in the last eight games. If you aren’t worried this year, why not?”
“Your free agent signees are performing worse than some of the backups you signed off the street. Will you hand starting jobs back to these underperformers?”
December 9th, 2014 at 4:50 pm
I wish Gene had asked a couple of other questions and gotten honest answers:
___________
NewTampaChris brings up a good point. I know Licht does the pre-game answering softball questions from Deckerhoff, but does this clown ever go before the non-Buccaneer paid media to answer some questions? Never hear about this clown Licht and what a horrific job he’s done, other than drafting Evans.
December 9th, 2014 at 4:58 pm
MariotaOrWinstonOrWalkdaPlank Says:
December 9th, 2014 at 4:14 pm
And Michael Spurlock is on the streets.
What we need is a real GM to keep Lovie in check this offseason.
—————–
Michael Spurlock is going to be 32 very soon. You know who else might be available? Ron Brown… better yet, Willie Gault…ohh, I know, Brian Mitchell is available and he’s only 46.
Spurlock is past his expiration date.
December 9th, 2014 at 5:02 pm
Lovie’s past his expiration date too Brandon, and yet here we are…
December 9th, 2014 at 5:06 pm
Thanks Brandon, my sentiments exactly. Some of the comments posted out here about past players are so inane you wonder if it’s the guys agent or family is posting them.
I hear Karl ‘ThemTruth’ Williams is currently unemployed from the NFL as well.
December 9th, 2014 at 5:10 pm
Great, he runs really hard and fast in place…still not going anywhere. Dude just moved a bunch of deck chairs around, threw some good ones overboard and picked up some broken ones. Nice job lapdog. I don’t want to hear anything else from this chump unless he is directly addressing the colossal failures him and his daddy Smith committed. This guy sucks!
December 9th, 2014 at 5:38 pm
Brandon,
Lovie was hell bent on replacing Eric Paige as our KR. The only problem is that he hasn’t even brought in one single guy that is as good as Paige.
Sad to see Lovie ruin this team further.
Schiano would have us atop the division this year, had he been granted a 3rd year.
December 9th, 2014 at 5:44 pm
32 = past expiration date? Tell that to Devin Hester. Not saying Spurlock is as good but he is sure as hell better than anyone returning kicks on this team. He has like 4 career return TD’s, 6 PR’s of over 40 yards and 10 over 20 yards.
I personally wish we would’ve gotten Hester or McCluster this offseason, or at least kept Paige for PR, he was bad at KR. Lovie didn’t do any of those things, adding to the already long list of personnel failures in one season as head coach of our team.
December 9th, 2014 at 6:10 pm
Guys, c’mon, leave Brandon SMITH alone!
December 9th, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Its time for the glazers to sell the bucs… a new owner ccould fix this mess! They are terrible owners and evaluators!
December 9th, 2014 at 6:13 pm
@Gatrbuc
This is the new NFC South. We’re a flipped truck and a defenseless Saints and Falcons away from being contenders.
December 9th, 2014 at 6:50 pm
All the time spent on simply finding a return man sort of tells you the story of things with the bucs these days
December 9th, 2014 at 6:53 pm
@nate
“Its time for the glazers to sell the bucs… a new owner ccould fix this mess!”
And the perfect candidate is already in town. If it wasn’t for the prohibition of owners holding teams in more than one pro league Jeff Vinik has been awesome for the Lightning and the city of Tampa. He’s make a great new owner for the Bucs!!!
December 9th, 2014 at 7:28 pm
When 2014 brought a new general manager, head coach and coaching staff, along with a significant number of new players, it is not hard to understand the disappointing year the BUCS and their fans have experienced. However, this year has brought hope for 2015 with some real surprises. On defense: Lansanah @ MLB, Lemon @ SLB, McDougald @ SS and Jacquies Smith @ LE have filled holes that the off-season won’t have to deal with. On offense: Sims @ RB, Brate @ TE and Pamphile @ T are all upgrades to begin 2015 with and Josh McCown is clearly an excellent back-up QB. Hopefully the draft and selective free agents will give the BUCS a strong start to 2015 and return to winning ways.
December 9th, 2014 at 7:51 pm
No Tye I did not.
December 9th, 2014 at 7:54 pm
Vinik would do a better job building the Bucs, I agree.
December 9th, 2014 at 8:11 pm
That revolving door comment could also apply to the OL, qb and rb situations in Tampa as well as the damned coaching staff if you look at the big picture since the Glazer lads gave Chuckie his walking papers….
December 9th, 2014 at 8:17 pm
StPeteBucFan: Amen to the Vinik suggestion. I know Vinik has something going on concerning the old ConAgra site off of Nebraska Ave in downtown; always thought he was thinking a baseball stadium for the Rays with that venture but thats a topic for JoeRaysFan, not on this thread…. I’d also throw the name Eddie DeBartolo into the ring as he is also a current Tampa resident but you could not ask for a better owner than Vinik as is shown with the Lightning franchise; its actually fun to go to the Ice Palace/TBT Forum and enjoy a game where the home teams has a damned good chance of winning every night, unlike a home game @ RJS where there have been more blowout losses & Vegas inquiries demanding gag jobs by the Bucs in the past 5 seasons than wins……..
December 9th, 2014 at 8:20 pm
licht said: it will keep revolving until we find the right guy.
I was hoping he was referring to the entire offensive line.
LOL
December 9th, 2014 at 8:46 pm
@ Tye…………Yes Sir I did. Thank you.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:30 pm
I agree wish glazers would sell to vinik and enjoy there soccer team
December 10th, 2014 at 1:01 am
I’m rooting for Solomon! I think the whole moral of the team needs to be brought up. It’s gotta be hard to be on this team. Patton is fast and tough. The team as a whole needs a fire lit up under their a$$es so they can reach full potential! Eric Page will obviously not be stepping into the revolving door anytime soon (who knows why???), time to move on people. Aside from Page, Patton has done the best out of all the replacements… when he was cut from the Bucs, the boy was in the top ten (maybe 11th) with returns in the league. I was actually quite happy when they brought him back.
December 10th, 2014 at 7:39 am
Glazers don’t have to sell if they would only hire a qualified NFL guy as president of football ops to run this organization. Take the total control given to Lovie away.. If he doesn’t like it let him walk.
December 10th, 2014 at 4:05 pm
Eric Page was better than all these people combined. Turnovers are important to Lovie yet all these guys combined has tripled EPs fumbles while putting up similar numbers otherwise. Let Page come in for a couple games and see what happens.