Hope again.
Look, Joe gets how NFL suits like to gloss their homegrown talent. It’s like an Iowa farmer bragging about how many bushel an acre his corn crop produced.
The Bucs put a lot of work into research and scouting, as most teams do. So Joe gets why a team would be giddy about a player they *think* may turn into something. There’s a lot of sweat equity involved.
Joe heard a whole lot of happy talk last week in Indianapolis about David Walker, last year’s fourth-round pick who blew his knee out last July. Two words went through Joe’s head every time he saw someone with the Bucs beam after mentioning Walker’s name.
Slow down!
Joe sure hopes — there’s that vile word again — Walker turns into something. But here’s the ugly reality: Walker has never played a snap of football in the NFL. Not one.
In fact, Walker never made it past the first padded practice of training camp last summer. He blew out his knee in the very first padded practice.
So Walker has only been healthy for underwear football. And when/if he does get on an NFL field, he won’t be playing Southeast Missouri State.
Joe brings all this up because, per well-plugged-in NFL scribe Dan Graziano of ESPN, Licht is looking for an edge rusher right now.
Tampa Bay will look for edge-rush help this offseason. Veteran Haason Reddick sounds unlikely to return, and though the Bucs have high hopes for 2025 fourth-round pick David Walker, who was impressing them last offseason before tearing his ACL at the start of training camp, they’ll be trying to bring in upgrades on the edge.
Enough about hope! A hope is a prayer! It’s wishful thinking. Instead of banking on hope (UH-gen), how about banking on proof and proven evidence and an established resume in the NFL? You know, like go trade for someone or sign someone you know can get after the quarterback because he has proven it on the field of play in the NFL.
(Joe applauds Licht for sticking his neck out, stepping outside his comfort zone last March and signing Haason Reddick. Hey, it didn’t work out. At least Licht *tried* instead of again banking on hope.)
Joe still maintains the franchise turnaround began when Licht stole Jason Pierre-Paul for a third-round pick from the Giants. That began the Bucs’ march to winning the Super Bowl some three years later.
If Licht can do it once, he can do it again.
Yes, Joe wants Walker to be a beastly Pro Bowler. It would be such a cool story and if he did, Joe’s thinking the Bucs could win the NFC South.
But banking on a fourth-round pick from Central Arkansas, who unfortunately has never completed even a full NFL padded practice, to have a major impact at the defense’s most important position, seems like a major, if not unnecessary, reach to Joe.