Sunday, September 2, 2007

Bucs Make Cuts to Get to 53

The Bucs made their final roster cuts on Saturday and a surprise to many was that Chris Simms was not cut and the Bucs will be carrying four quarterbacks on the roster. The move is surprising since Simms played only one series all preseason and looked terrible for most of training camp and the preseason. The Bucs may be trying to wait and hope someone will want to trade for Simms, or maybe they will put him on IR with his new "hip injury" that kept him from playing against the Texans. One other explanation could be that the Glazers stepped in and told Gruden that Simms was staying. Everyone knows that Gruden does not like Chris so this move is perplexing, which makes the Glazers involvement make some sense.

The Rest if the 53 man Roster from TampaBuccaneers.com looks like this :

QB: Jeff Garcia, Luke McCown, Bruce Gradkowski, Chris Simms
RB: Cadillac Williams, Michael Pittman, Earnest Graham
FB: Michael Pittman, BJ Askew
WR1: Joey Galloway, David Boston
WR2: Maurice Stovall, Michael Clayton, Ike Hilliard
TE: Alex Smith, Anthony Becht, Jerramy Stevens
LT: Luke Petigout, Donald Penn
LG: Aaron Sears, Anthony Davis
C: John Wade, Matt Lehr, Dan Buenning
RG: Davin Joeseph
RT: Jeremy Trueblood

LE: Greg Spires, Kevin Carter
DT: Chris Hovan, Ryan Sims
DT: Jovan Haye, Greg Peterson
RE: Gaines Adams, Patrick Chukwurah, Greg White
SLB: Cato June, Quincy Black
MLB: Barrett Ruud, Ryan Nece, Leon Joe
WLB: Derrick Brooks, Adam Hayward
LCB: Brian Kelly, Phillip Buchanon
RCB: Ronde Barber, Sammy Davis, Torrie Cox (Suspended List)
FS: Will Allen, Tanard Jackson, Kalvin Pearson
SS: Jermaine Phillips, Sabby Piscitelli

P: Josh Bidwell
K: Matt Bryant
LS: Andrew Economos

I was close in my predictions, but there were some obvious surprises to me. It looks like Simms took Mark Jones spot, which is interesting because Jones has been our KR/PR all preseason and looked good doing it. Kick offs and punt returns are areas the Bucs have never been good at and right now we do not have a guy on the roster I am comfortable with to do that job. On the defense it seems that the Bucs went with younger cheaper options in most cases. They kept Ryan Sims over Ellis Wyms although Wyms had a better preseason than Sims, but Wyms contract was for a lot more. The Bucs elected to go with 6th round draft pick Adam Heyward as Derrick Brooks back up instead of veteran Jamie Winborn. In the secondary the Bucs chose to keep former first round pick Sammy Davis instead of Alan Zemaitis. While I had the Z-man making the team, I am not surprised by Davis making the roster. Davis had a nice preseason and Z was burnt on a couple TDs and was not tackling well. With a lack of depth at MLB the Bucs decided to keep former Bear Leon Joe instead of another secondary player like Donte Nicholson.

Full List of Cuts:
Kenneth Darby RB +
Chris Denman T *
Lionel Gates RB
Chas Gessner WR *
Keith Heinrich TE
Mark Jones WR
CJ Leak TE
Chad Lucas WR
Enoka Lucas G/C
Dennis Roland T
Byron Storer FB
Paris Warren WR *

Darell Campbell DT
Marcus Hamilton CB +
Carlos Hendricks CB *
Julian Jenkins DE
Jerry Mackey LB
Donte Nicholson S
Jamie Winborn LB
Ellis Wyms DT
Alan Zematis CB

* = If they clear waivers they will go on IR
+ = Candidate for Practice Squad

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure I understand keeping 4 quarterbacks, but its nice to see them giving another chance to Simms.

Adam Lewis said...

Not many people understand keeping 4 quarterbacks. It looks like Gruden is not happy about it himself. There is talk that the Bucs are looking to trade one of the QBs on the team in the next 4 weeks while Cox is on the suspended list.