November 5th, 2026
Vita VeaChris Lindstrom
Bucs DT Vita Vea tangles with Dixie Chicks G Chris Lindstrom Sunday.
The trade deadline is getting down to the nitty-gritty. Depending how Sunday night’s game against the Bears plays out, it could lead to some very difficult decisions by the Bucs.
The trade deadline is next week Tuesday. The Bucs are currently 3-5 and just a half-game out of first place in the NFC South landfill.
Even if the Bucs lose Sunday night and the Stinking Panthers win, the Bucs would still be just 1.5 games behind with eight games to play. Not exactly an insurmountable hurdle to climb.
So Joe doesn’t know if Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht would pull the trigger on a trade on the plane ride home from Chicago late Sunday night.
That hasn’t stopped folks from linking Bucs players to potential trade suitors. One prospective trade was typed by well-plugged-in Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.
Recently, Giants coach John Harbaugh went hard after then-Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons. Harbaugh was panting so heavily over Simmons that he made a direct plea to Titans caudillo Amy Adams Strunk and tried to sweet-talk her on the phone into giving up Simmons.
Harbaugh’s crush on Simmons was unrequited and Adams-Strunk instead shipped Simmons off to Chicago last week, where he will suit up to play against the Bucs on Sunday night.
Gee thanks, Amy!
Having been cock-blocked by Adams-Strunk, per Fowler, Harbaugh has a new crush: Bucs defensive tackle Vita Vea.
The veteran Bucs defender spoke with the local pen and mic club yesterday and Joe asked him how he handles his name being tossed as trade bait.
And Joe asked Vea if he is flattered by how he’s linked to so many rumors. (The Giants rumor is just the latest.)
(When Joe asked Vea if he was “flattered” to be linked to other teams, Vea broke out into a huge smile.)
“Shoot, I didn’t really know until you brought it up,” Vea said. “Honestly, I just come in, I think my job is to come in and just be here and focus on my job on the field. [Focus on] what I need to do.”
In any other division, the Bucs would already be toast. Coaches would already be texting like mad, reaching out to contacts throughout the NFL and college looking for work come January.
But the Bucs don’t play in any other division. They play in the NFC South landfill where a team with a moderate losing record is in the playoff hunt until January.
As a result, Joe is highly confident KitKat-eating Bucs coach Todd Bowles has zero desire to trade away one of his key pieces on defense, a defense that has the lowest success rate on running plays.
Bowles knows better than anyone if he can get the Bucs back to the playoffs, despite a horrid start to the season, he might just save his job.