TAMPA, Fla. — We’re about a week away from the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft and for the first time ever, as Super Bowl champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have the last pick in the first round.
So what do you get the team that has everything?
Bucs general manager Jason Licht says he has about “eight-thousand options” with the 32nd pick.
“We’re going to take the best player,” Licht said Wednesday. “It might not be someone that steps in right away, or has a huge role his rookie year. I would say every position is on the table right now.”
Tampa Bay has all 22 starters are back and they brought in another running back in Giovani Bernard. But the approach is the same.
“You always have what you want going into the draft,” Licht said. “You don’t necessarily come out of it with everything you went into it trying to get. It depends on if the player is there. There are other ways of finding those players, like Bruce Arians talked about after the draft.”
Licht said, one of the questions he likes to ask prospects to gauge their passion for the team is ‘how many players can you name from our team?’
“In the past, they would be able to name a few,” he said. “It seemed like this year they could name the entire starting line-up on both sides of the ball. That comes from playing a lot of prime-time games, playing in the Super Bowl. In terms of juice, there was a little more, players sitting up more, a little more wide-eyed and more excited to talk about our team.”
In off the field news, wide receiver Antonio Brown has resolved a civil dispute with former trainer Britney Taylor, who in a 2019 lawsuit accused Brown of sexually assaulting her. Brown still remains unsigned.
“To have this resolved certainly helps, but that’s not necessarily the deciding factor whether or not we’re going to continue to talk.”
As of right now, the Bucs have eight picks in the draft. the first round will take place on Thursday, April 29th.
