“Who wrote that?”
Now this is refreshing.
Joe is starting to see the same pap creep up from the national media that was overwhelming last year at this time.
The Bucs are blah and might be second-class NFL citizens for not improving because they just re-signed their own players.
Joe knows this mentality got under the skin of Bucs types last year. They wanted to know when it became a sin that a good team wanted to keep its own players. They had a point.
But that’s a big reason why NFL stenographers from outside the state of Florida banged on Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht. He may have kept his team together — but where did they improve, these sophists wanted to know?
Then, Licht knocked it out of the park in the draft. That’s what you call improving your team!
The same tripe Joe began reading recently: The Bucs only re-signed their own, with the exception of Jets reject Haason Reddick, the folks claimed. So where did the Bucs improve?
Well, it seems one guy gets it. Ben Solack of BSPN typed a piece praising Licht for keeping the band together. Imagine, a four-time NFC South champion actually didn’t want to tear apart the team.
I loved: The continuity. You won’t find the Buccaneers on many winners/losers lists, but they grade very highly from me given how well they spent their money. In retaining Bredeson, they got a starting guard for $11 million per year — a huge discount relative to the market for Will Fries and Aaron Banks. In retaining Godwin, they got a high-end WR2 for $22 million per year — an impossible discount relative to what other teams would have spent on him as a low-end WR1.
The best news? The Buccaneers know how Godwin and Bredeson work in their system, so a lot of the uncertainty inherent to free agency is avoided. All 11 starters from their offense last season are back on the roster. That’s great business.
AND, Joe might add, all 11 starters return from an NFL-record-setting offense. Monster difference there.
So again, Joe thought this was refreshing, especially coming from an Eagles fan, which Solack is.
At least one guy in the northeast who types for a living seems to get it.