Tag: bucs gronk

Don’t crown the Bucs as the NFL’s best offense just yet

The addition of Rob Gronkowski is great, but these Bucs still have a lot to overcome to be the league’s best offense.

If you could build the ultimate Madden NFL team, chances are it’d look a lot like the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You’d have wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin catching deep balls from Tom Brady, and oh, just for good measure, let’s add Brady’s favorite target of all time, Rob Gronkowski to the roster.

It’s easy to get caught up in the offensive potential of this team, especially when you consider the Bucs finished 2019 as the league’s third-best offense, averaging 397.9 yards per game, despite the fact that Jameis Winston tossed 30 interceptions. Brady taking over that offense, along with Gronk, will instantly make Tampa Bay the league’s best offense, right?

Well, not so fast.

While Brady is certainly an upgrade at quarterback, we can’t ignore the fact that he will be 43 when the season starts and Gronk will be 31 and a year removed from the game. Both these guys were stars in New England, but they’ll be playing for a new coach, in a new offense, on a new franchise. And, due to the coronavirus pandemic, they haven’t had the benefit of hitting the field yet with their new teammates to develop that chemistry. It’s an offseason unlike anything they’ve experienced before, and doing it on a new team makes it all the more challenging.

And if Tampa Bay wants to boast the league’s best offense, they still need to fix their issues on the O-line and in the backfield. Thursday’s draft will allow them to address those positions of need, but let’s see which players the Bucs walk away with before assessing this team’s offensive outlook. Plus, it’s not as though teams like the Saints, Niners, Chiefs and Ravens haven’t made upgrades of their own this offseason.

It’s going to take some time for Brady and Gronk to build that rapport with their new teammates, and this unusual offseason certainly isn’t going to help. The Bucs will put up points for sure, but we’ve seen Bucs teams in the past do that, too, and still finish the year with a losing record. What we want to see is a postseason berth from this 2020 team.

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This Adam Schefter tweet proves the Bucs came out winners in the Gronk trade

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers pulled off a trade for former Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who will end his retirement to reunite with Brady.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made another major splash before this week’s NFL draft, agreeing to a trade with the New England Patriots for tight end Rob Gronkowski, who will end his one-year retirement and reunite with Tom Brady in Tampa.

Gronk is arguably the greatest tight end to ever play the game, and the chemistry he and Brady developed on the field helped New England continue its reign of dominance over the past decade.

And, as the details of the trade emerge, it’s clear the Buccaneers came out big winners in this, especially when you consider what the Lions almost gave up in 2018, had a proposed Gronk-to-Detroit trade gone through.

Here’s Adam Schefter with the details.

It certainly seems like the Bucs fleeced the Patriots in this, surrendering just a fourth-round pick, which was a compensatory pick the Bucs were recently awarded, so they still have a pick in round four. For the Patriots, they needed to shed Gronk’s contract, especially if he wasn’t going to be a part of their reboot in New England.

It’s another major victory for the Bucs, but paper teams don’t win championships. This squad will have to produce in 2020. And with the acquisition of Gronk, the pressure is on.

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