![]() ![]() 1 overall pick Bryce Young at quarterback. Meanwhile, both the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers - two teams who came close to unseating the Buccaneers for division supremacy last season - will enter the season with more experience and stability, with the latter featuring No. The New Orleans Saints will no longer be held back by quarterback play after acquiring former Pro Bowl quarterback Derek Carr. If Mayfield does emerge as the starting quarterback, can we really envision a veteran quarterback who has never been more than a “solid” starter to lead this team to a better record than Brady did last season? Especially when factoring in this year’s squad is a worse version of last season’s team? Why is that important? Because the Buccaneers can then use that top draft pick to select an actual franchise quarterback - think USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye -rather than relying on an underwhelming quarterback competition between a journeyman and a former second-round pick who may not be good enough to even start. If the third-year Trask fails to beat out Mayfield - who is on a one-year deal worth up to $8.5 million - that means the Buccaneers are still looking for their franchise quarterback. While the Buccaneers maintain they’re merely reloading and still competing for a division title, the more likely scenario is Tampa Bay fizzling out during the 2023 season and landing a top pick for next year’s draft. "It's just going to look a little different and be done a little bit differently." "We're still trying to restock and eventually build another championship team," Licht said at the NFL Combine. That all disappeared during the 2022 season as Tampa Bay struggled to hold off mediocre competition in the NFC South for the division title, as they barely made it into the postseason with an 8-9 record and with Brady single-handedly willing the team into the playoffs. ![]() In other words, they were still a bonafide contender at the conclusion of the 2021 season. A little more than a year prior, the Buccaneers were one Matthew Stafford game-winning drive away from advancing to the NFC Championship Game. ![]()
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