Guessing The 53-Man Roster
June 12th, 2019
Projections.
It may be June but that doesn’t mean one cannot look ahead to September.
And while he admits there is a fair amount of “guessing” in picking the roster prior to the Fourth of July, Greg Auman of The Athletic decided to take a stab to see who will suit up against the 49ers to open the season at the Den of Depression.
Auman doesn’t really have any major surprises other than one potential eyebrow-raiser in that Andre Ellington would not make the team running back.
However, Auman’s reasoning as to who wins the kicker competition is amusing to Joe in a perverse way.
Auman guesses that Matt Gay, a fifth-round pick of the Bucs, will be the kicker. Not so much because he has a better leg than Cairo Santos. But Auman believes Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht wants to avoid the public relations disaster which could erupt if he cuts a kicker he drafted (again).
As long as the Bucs continue to lose, the ghost of Roberto Aguayo will haunt Licht like the dustcloud that perpetually follows Pigpen.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:04 am
Licht took a kicker knowing he’d get pounded on it . I don’t think the media and fan outrage is impacting him all that much…
June 12th, 2019 at 8:09 am
Dumb assessment. Licht won’t have a job if fgs cost us a winning record.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:25 am
I expect multiple players who get cut from other teams to make this roster
June 12th, 2019 at 8:26 am
HFX I think Licht realizes the Bucs need a long term, cheap option at kicker and free agents don’t bring that. I give him kudos for selecting Gay after the Aguayo fiasco because he knows this team needs a kicker.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:34 am
If M. Gay can hit 70% from 50+ we are adding points on the board each game and that is the difference between him and Santos, who is career 7-14 from 50+ and 0-2 in the past four years!!!!
Not being able to even ATTEMPT from 50 yards out is a MAJOR problem in today’s NFL.
Santos has also only attempted 23 FGs in the last four seasons (78%) vs 102 in his first three (84%)!
Gay has 65 attempts in two years, avg. 2+ FG attempts per game, hitting 86%. He had 13 games with 3+ FG attempts and hit 100% accuracy in 8 out of those 13, with three games at 4/4 and one game going 6/6.
I won’t get into Roberto’s stats coming out of college, but on paper, Gay is the obvious choice to be our FG kicker Week 1.
*stats per NFL.com and sports-reference.com
June 12th, 2019 at 8:35 am
You should never waste a draft pick on a kicker. Matt Gay may turn out to be great but he would not have been picked in the draft if the bucs hadn’t picked him. They could have signed him as a free agent right aftet the draft.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:37 am
Let me just add:
With Utah, he connected on 11 of his 14 attempts from 50-plus yards out.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:45 am
Allbuccedup I disagree with you 100%. If Licht is convinced he is the man then why wait and hope he isn’t drafted; no way you know he wouldn’t be and no way you know, given a chance to sign anywhere, that he’d sign here. If he makes the roster – and I suspect he will – then he will be a very productive player for a 5th round pick, players who are usually backups and practice squad players.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:50 am
Matt Gay was a Bruce Arians pick. It’s obvious Licht no longer has full control of the roster.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:56 am
“As long as the Bucs continue to lose, the ghost of Darrell Henderson will haunt Licht like the dustcloud that perpetually follows Pigpen.”
Gump actually passed on the greatest RB in NCAA history in exchange for two magic beans. Those beans turned out to be his 4th and 5th round picks. He got to pick them early, way too early, and that allowed him to choose a kicker in the 5th.
DH is the NCAA’s all time leader in yards per carry with 8.2 over the length of his illustrious career. He also set record marks for yards after contact (6.18), where nobody even exceeded 5.0. Their offensive line was similar to the Bucs and he was actually hit in the backfield early and often.
Most of Henderson’s stats were accrued despite being the 2nd option behind Memphis’s starting RB, Tony Pollard. Henderson also might be one of the best kick returners in the NFL. He mostly was not allowed to return except for one game where he had a 99 yard TD.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:58 am
Light should be gone fron the bucs . After years he still has not been good at his job.
June 12th, 2019 at 8:59 am
Never ever draft a kicker.
June 12th, 2019 at 9:01 am
Ghost of DH give it a rest. We heard you. Come back when he has done something.
June 12th, 2019 at 9:02 am
1-15
June 12th, 2019 at 9:05 am
Scbucs fan must be related to Jason ” not to very bright” Licht.
June 12th, 2019 at 9:06 am
5-11 again!
June 12th, 2019 at 9:09 am
Allbuccedup sorry to disagree with you and actually bring facts to my argument. That’s what I get for trying to have a conversation with a moron.
June 12th, 2019 at 9:11 am
Good morning grumpy Bucs fans 😀
June 12th, 2019 at 9:13 am
Long ways to go till 53… have a great day grumpy Bucs fans. Lots to do out there today.
June 12th, 2019 at 9:16 am
Hopefully the Glazer Boys will sell or eventually find (luckily) a good GM!! Agree w ya Ghost on Henderson but Licht has screwed up WAY too many times before the magic bean trade from the Rams!! Hell .. the Dust Cloud behind PigPen would be a better GM than Gump..
June 12th, 2019 at 9:17 am
“Ghost of DH give it a rest. We heard you. Come back when he has done something.”
I’m trying, but the Joe’s keep pulling me back. The Pigpen reference set me off.
I’ve been a Buc fan since 1976, the worst mistake in Buc history, and there has been many, was passing on DH.
Mark my words!
June 12th, 2019 at 9:19 am
Well then obviously Greg as never watched Gay kick 50 yarders
June 12th, 2019 at 9:24 am
Off topic… My 14 year old son told me he had Outgrown his Buc Jersey and asked me who might he get as a new one.. I told him the Bucs got a new kicker… for some reason he passed on it!!
June 12th, 2019 at 9:26 am
we dont make the playoffs, this will be lichts last year….
GO BUCS!!!!
June 12th, 2019 at 9:28 am
I guess Tampa media is a little slow when they continue to insinuate that Licht has control of who makes the team. He may have an opinion but ultimately it’s BA’s decision.
June 12th, 2019 at 10:03 am
Matt Gay made 8 kicks out of 11 from 50+ yards in college. That is impressive. Aguayo missed 5 kicks his final year at FSU. I’m far more impressed with Matt Gay than I was Roberto Aguayo.
June 12th, 2019 at 10:21 am
kinda a disappointed this was a subscription site. . .
June 12th, 2019 at 11:29 am
Sorry I 100% disagree with you SCsucsfan. But I don’t need to bring facts look them up, that is if you have a brain.
June 12th, 2019 at 12:26 pm
I commend Licht from remembering what Belichick and the Patriots taught him regarding not being afraid to move on from mistakes (cutting Aguayo) and not being gun shy to take chances (drafting a kicker in the 2nd round and the 5th round.) Just because other teams do not normally do this doesn’t necessarily make it the wrong decision.
It was wrong to draft Aguayo simply because he melted down, but that was hard to foresee from the most accurate kicker in college history. It will be wrong to draft Gay only if he doesn’t make the team/perform well.
Hindsight is 20/20.
June 12th, 2019 at 12:42 pm
Licht’s been “Guessing the 53 Man Roster” since he got here!
June 12th, 2019 at 1:06 pm
If only the Bucs can dissipate the heavy dust cloud surrounding the team for what seems like forever to escape the pigpen of heavy losing.
June 12th, 2019 at 1:36 pm
I apologize to SCbucs fan I shouldn’t get upset over all this, its just a game. It’s been a long eleven years.
June 12th, 2019 at 1:39 pm
@bucnole … “kinda a disappointed this was a subscription site”. Agree bucnole. I thought this had all the potential of being a REALLY interesting article, UNTIL I clicked on that link and found out you had to subscribe to get any meat. Maybe that’s why none of the comments deal with the subject of this article. First time I can ever remember the Joes doing that; they must REALLY like Auman.
Agree that it’s much too early to project what our 53-man roster will look like, BUT … it’s fun anyways to see what various people think of different position groups. My gut feeling is that this year’s Bucs will balance the roster with 25 offense, 25 defense & 3 S/Ts.
o Offense: 3 QB, 4 RB, 9 OLinemen, 6 WR, 3 TE.
o Defense: 6 DLinemen, 4 OLB, 5 ILB, 5 CB, 5 S
o Special Teams: P (Pinion), K (Gay), LS (Triner)
The 4 OLB presumes that JPP will still be a Buc but as a NFI he wouldn’t count against the roster until ready to go. I think we’ll keep an extra DE (as opposed to an OLB) on the roster until JPP returns.
Also there’s the possibility that Bucs will keep a 4th TE as opposed to keeping a 3rd QB on the roster. Still not sure what BA& company think of Ryan Griffin.
June 12th, 2019 at 1:39 pm
Without a paid subscription to read the entire article I think the reason Auman left Andre Ellington out was because of his age and the emergence of young runners Shawn Wilson, Bruce Anderson, and Dare Ogunbowale, who will play significant parts on ST’s
June 12th, 2019 at 1:50 pm
Outside of all of the draft picks for this year, the vets brought in on 1 year prove it deals, and the obvious safe picks for this year (Jameis, Mike, OJ etc.) by my count that still leaves about 11 or 12 spots to fill considering JPP might not play this year.