Freeman: Bucs Told Me Leftwich Was A Smokescreen

Somewhere in Tampa tonight, Bucs quarterback Byron Leftwich is likely looking for answers. Apart from the fact that the Buccaneers picked a first-round quarterback not long after signing Leftwich, the first-round quarterback who joined the team on Saturday said that the Bucs told him the addition of Leftwich was merely aimed at throwing people off. “It was something they told me -- they told me it was a smoke screen, everybody would think they didn’t want a QB,” Freeman said in an NFL.com chat. “They said they were ready to trade up. I think it worked out great. I was sitting there with my family and enjoying it, and I got to go to the team that I wanted to go to.” On April 13, we posed the question of whether Leftwich is a smokescreen, given that his contract contained no signing bonus and a non-guaranteed $2.5 million base salary for 2009. As we wrote, "[W]e’re not prepared to agree with Stephen Holder’s take in the St. Petersburg Times that the arrival of Leftwich is “the strongest indication yet that quarterback is not a consideration for the Bucs’ first-round pick in the draft.” As we also wrote, “We think that the Bucs are still potentially in play for a guy like Josh Freeman at No. 19, and that signing Leftwich less than two weeks before the picks start to fly might persuade some of the folks who might otherwise be inclined to leapfrog Tampa to assume that the Bucs would pass on Freeman if he’s still on the market when they go on the clock.” But this doesn’t mean Leftwich is the odd man out. If the Bucs are willing to eat the $2.5 million signing bonus they paid to Luke McCown, he could be traded or cut instead of Leftwich. Regardless, Freeman probably shouldn’t have been so candid about Leftwich being a smokescreen.