Quarterback Kyle Trask will leave the Bucs after appearing in just seven regular-season games over four years.
Quarterback Kyle Trask will leave the Bucs after appearing in just seven regular-season games over four years. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]
TAMPA — Kyle Trask sat behind Tom Brady for two seasons and Baker Mayfield for two more. The only thing he will be backing up in Tampa Bay now is a moving van.
The Bucs plan to release Trask, the former Florida Gators star, after he lost the No. 2 quarterback spot to veteran Teddy Bridgewater.
Trask will revert to injured reserve with a minor shoulder injury that he sustained in Saturday night’s preseason loss to the Bills. After working out an injury settlement, the team plans to part ways with him, the Tampa Bay Times confirmed.
Bridgewater appeared in only one preseason game, 12 days after signing with the team, and threw two touchdown passes in a win over the Steelers. He was expected to play against the Bills on Saturday night but was sent home before the game with an illness.
In four seasons, Trask appeared in seven regular-season games for the Bucs with no starts, completing 4 of 11 passes for 28 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions.
On Saturday, Trask went 13 of 17 for 93 yards and a touchdown to rookie Tez Johnson against the Bills. After the game, he didn’t appear concerned about his future with the team and said his performance was “solid.”
“It was just really fun being out there with everybody in that last preseason game,” Trask said. “... It’s inevitable cuts are coming up. You don’t know who’s going to be here next week so it’s fun to go out there and give it all with everybody one last time, the last one in preseason.
“Overall, I thought it was a great overall performance.”
![Kyle Trask, back, lost his No. 2 job to Teddy Bridgewater, who has loads more experience playing in NFL games.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 620 851"/%3E)
Kyle Trask, back, lost his No. 2 job to Teddy Bridgewater, who has loads more experience playing in NFL games.
Head coach Todd Bowles has said he believes the Bucs can be a Super Bowl contender with Mayfield. If he gets hurt, Bridgewater has experience, starting 65 of the 79 games he has played in.
When the offseason began, Trask was going to be the Bucs’ No. 2 quarterback. He signed a one-year deal as an unrestricted free agent worth $2.78 million with $1.34 million guaranteed.
What convinced the Bucs they needed to go another direction? Mayfield missed two practices during training camp after hitting his hand on a defender’s shoulder pad and sustaining a contusion.
That gave Trask an opportunity to run the starting offense for a couple days in practice and he performed poorly. Then the Bucs signed the 32-year-old Bridgewater.
The Bucs selected Trask in the second round of the 2021 NFL draft, believing he could develop into the heir apparent to Brady. But Trask never appeared in a game until Week 18 of the 2022 regular season.
Brady retired and the plan was for Trask to battle Blaine Gabbert for the starting job. But 40 days later, Brady returned and Trask was back on the bench.
In 2023, the Bucs signed Mayfield to a one-year, $4 million contract to compete with Trask, and Mayfield won the starting job. He hasn’t missed a game in two seasons and led the Bucs to back-to-back NFC South titles while throwing more touchdowns than any quarterback in the NFL the past two years.
The Bucs released undrafted rookie quarterback Connor Bazelak Monday. But if he clears waivers, they want to sign him to their practice squad.
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