Schedule Out As Draft Nears

Well, the schedule finally came out, and it looks somewhat favorable for the Bucs with only two division games in the first 9 games, with a November BYE week, which is much better than last year. There also appears to be no real threat of a real cold game. The Bucs mostly play at 1 on Sundays, again, with the road trip to San Fran on Dec 23 being a night game on NBC. No MNF (no biggie).

Now we can look forward to the last couple of weeks before the draft. The rumors are swirling for the various teams. I still think that either Joe Thomas or Calvin Johnson will be there when the Bucs pick, and that individual will be the player the Bucs select. It does appear, however, that Johnson may actually be higher on the Bucs' draft board than Thomas. We'll see. Don't pay any mind to the rumors of the Bucs trading up, as that's not very likely. The Bucs need all the picks they have to rebuild this team.

The Bucs are also going through the first OTA's. So far Quarles and Kelly aren't there, but BK has missed OTA's before (he lives in California)and Quarles is still undergoing evaluations by a number of Doctors, reviewing his current health. I have a feeling that the Doctors are telling him to retire and he's trying to get someone to tell him otherwise. I suspect that he may well retire this off-season. If he does, the Bucs will recover over three million in cap space, but they'll lose their starting MLB. It would give Ruud the chance to finally start regularly and move on, though. Ruud was pushing Quarles hard last year, and it's possible that Ruud could beat him out of the job even if Quarles came back healthy. So we'll see.