The Buccaneers have taken care of some important business with their rookies.
Tampa Bay announced on Thursday that second-round pick Josiah Trotter has signed his rookie four-year deal.
That means the Bucs have now signed all seven of their 2026 draftees.
Trotter, a linebacker, played his college ball at at West Virginia in 2023 and 2024 before transferring to Mizzou for 2025. He was the Big 12 defensive freshman of the year in 2024 before becoming a first-team All-SEC selection in 2205.
Bucs Clips
The NFL’s current political issues include an effort by Florida attorney general James Uthmeier to challenge the league’s diversity initiatives. Most recently, Uthmeier issued an investigative subpoena to the NFL, along with a letter suggesting that the league’s response to his initial communication may have violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by revising “many references” on its public website to its allegedly “unlawful ‘inclusive hiring’ policies.”
Commissioner Roger Goodell was in Florida on Tuesday, for the most recent ownership meeting. During a press conference conducted at the conclusion of the sessions, Goodell was asked about Uthmeier’s ongoing assault on the league.
“I think we have been very clear about our programs, and we obviously evaluate them all the time, not just for how they get better, but also to make sure that they’re consistent with the law,” Goodell said, via the Associated Press. “We’re engaging with the Florida attorney general and will continue to. We’ll share everything we’re doing with them. We think it’s certainly within the law, but also something very positive.”
The best evidence, frankly, would be to point to the teams’ hiring practices regarding coaches and General Managers. Despite efforts to expand the interview pool to include diverse candidates, the ultimate decisions — made exclusively by the teams and not the league — do not represent the demographics of the player population.
Uthmeier, who is running for election in 2026 to the job for which he received a gubernatorial appointment, may be engaging in performative antics. Time will tell whether his letter-writing campaign and request for information becomes something more than that.
Defensive end Markees Watts tried out for the Browns at their rookie minicamp this month and that went well enough to earn him an extended stay in Cleveland.
The Browns announced that they have signed Watts on Tuesday. They also signed wide receiver Aaron Anderson and linebacker Reid Carrico.
Watts spent the last three seasons with the Buccaneers. He appeared in 27 games and recorded 13 tackles and 1.5 sacks.
Anderson and Carrico were both undrafted this year and also took part in the minicamp on a tryout basis. Anderson had 106 receptions for 1,341 yards and five touchdowns while at LSU while Carrico spent time at West Virginia and Ohio State.
The Browns waived defensive tackle Bernard Gooden, tight end Caden Prieskorn, and wide receiver Isaiah Wooden in corresponding moves.
NFL Network lost its schedule-release show. It’s nevertheless gaining a late-season Saturday doubleheader.
In Week 16, on the day after Christmas, NFLN will televise a game at 4:30 p.m. ET and 8:00 p.m. ET.
The schedule identifies four potential games for the two slots: Buccaneers-Falcons, Bengals-Colts, Commanders-Vikings, and Panthers Steelers.
The decision as to which games will slide from Sunday to Saturday will be made during the season.
Coupled with a Thursday night game and three Christmas Day games, Week 16 will have 10 total windows — one more than Thanksgiving week. That leaves only eight games to be played on the Saturday afternoon windows.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
When Florida attorney general James Uthmeier posted his latest letter to the NFL regarding his ongoing assault against the league’s diversity policies, he didn’t include the league’s response to his initial letter. To have a full understanding of the situation, it would be helpful to have both.
And so we’ve obtained and reviewed the May 1 letter from NFL general counsel Ted Ullyot to Uthmeier.
The four-page letter explains the league’s position regarding the manner in which its diversity policies comply with Florida law and federal law. The letter also clarifies some of the information contained in Uthmeier’s initial letter.
“Simply put, the NFL does not permit the consideration of race, sex, or any other legally protected characteristic in any hiring decisions or employment actions,” Ullyot writes in the opening paragraph of the letter.
“Diversity of the candidate pool, both on the field and off, is also a critical part of the NFL’s success, and ‘it is the policy of the NFL and all member clubs to hire from a broad, diverse, and growing pool of high caliber talent, and to support equal opportunity and fair hiring practices throughout the League,’” Ullyot says. “The League defines ‘diversity’ expansively to include the ‘broad ranges of human difference among us.’”
As to the Rooney Rule, Ullyot explains that it does not “compel any hiring or discharge decision, or direct that anyone be ‘discriminated against.’ It operates solely in the interview process, such that clubs consider a broad set of candidates before making a hiring decision. It does not prevent a club from interviewing any candidate.” (Emphasis in original.)
Ullyot’s letter also emphasizes that various other NFL diversity policies do not mandate hiring decisions.
As to the recent revisions to the NFL’s website regarding the Rooney Rule, footnote 11 at page 3 explains that Uthmeier’s letter “has brought to our attention some outdated information.” The footnote states that the “information is in the process of being updated to accurately reflect the NFL’s current programs and policies.”
Uthmeier obviously wasn’t persuaded by Ullyot’s letter, given the response Uthmeier sent to the NFL on May 13 — and in light of the subpoena Uthmeier has served on the NFL. Regardless, the battle lines have been drawn; the NFL believes its policies require a broad search, and that the policies do not infringe on the ability of the individual teams to hire whomever they choose. Uthmeier believes otherwise.
Four quarterbacks will be featured on the third season of the Netflix series Quarterback.
The streaming service announced on Wednesday that Cam Ward, Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield, and Joe Flacco will be featured on this edition of the show. The show will chronicle the quarterbacks’ experiences during the 2025 season and will premiere on July 14.
Each quarterback’s storyline should have some interesting moments. Ward went through his rookie season with the Titans after being selected with the first pick of the draft while Daniels’s much-anticipated second season with the Commanders was wiped out by injuries. Mayfield thrived early in the year, but he and the Buccaneers struggled later in a year that ended without a playoff berth. Flacco opened the season as the starter for the Browns, but was traded to the Bengals to fill in for the injured Joe Burrow.
Burrow Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, and Marcus Mariota were featured on the first two seasons of the show.
Long-time NFL assistant coach Tom Moore hasn’t retired, after all. The 87-year-old offensive guru will return to where it all started.
Iowa.
Via Scott Dochterman of The Athletic, Moore will serve as senior consultant to the head coach and offensive advisor at the school where Moore played quarterback from 1958 through 1960. He also started his coaching career there, from 1961 to 1962.
Moore’s coaching career after leaving Iowa took him to Dayton, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, the New York Stars of the WFL, and Minnesota again before becoming an NFL assistant coach in 1977.
He spent 13 seasons with the Steelers, four with the Vikings, three with the Lions, and one with the Saints.
Moore arrived with the Colts in 1998, Peyton Manning’s rookie season. Moore served as Manning’s offensive coordinator for the first 11 years of his career, before taking on a senior position in 2009 and 2010.
Moore then went to the Jets for a year, the Titans for a year, the Cardinals for five years (with head coach Bruce Arians). After taking 2018 off, Moore reunited with Arians in Tampa Bay, where Moore worked as an offensive consultant from 2019 through 2025.
In all, Moore has won four Super Bowl rings — two with the Steelers (1978, 1979), one with the Colts (2006), and one with the Buccaneers (2020). Now, 64 years after leaving Iowa, his career is coming full circle.
Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka has talked about the heightened expectations that are coming his way with Mike Evans now on the 49ers and the team’s offensive coordinator thinks he’s up to taking more on his shoulders.
Zac Robinson used to coach Cooper Kupp with the Rams and he said on Tuesday that Egbuka has a very similar approach “just in terms of the way his brain works with the game of football and his natural instincts.” Robinson believes that will make it easy for Egbuka to slot into the offense that is being installed this offseason.
“He doesn’t have to change a thing,” Robinson said, via the team’s website. “I think he’s come back, he’s refreshed. He played a ton of snaps and obviously played a lot of college football leading into that season and played a ton of snaps [there]. I think Mek’s just going to take huge, huge strides. He knows the new terminology and is asking great questions. Mek’s just got to be Mek and do his thing and he’ll be just fine.”
Robinson said that the plan is for Egbuka to settle into the flanker role in the team’s base offense, but that his football instincts make it easy to move him around in order to exploit matchups and maximize the production of the passing game this fall.
The Buccaneers signed running back Kadarius Calloway, long snapper Scott Daly, outside linebacker Yasir Holmes and wide receiver Dean Patterson IV on Monday, the team announced. All four players were tryout participants in Tampa Bay’s rookie mini-camp last weekend.
In corresponding moves, the club also waived long snapper Wesley Brown, wide receiver Noah Short, outside linebacker Benton Whitley and running back Owen Wright.
Also, the Bucs’ claim of linebacker John Bullock off waivers from the Colts was processed on Monday.
Calloway played collegiately at New Mexico State University (2025), the University of California (2024) and Old Dominion University (2023). He combined to appear in 32 career games and totaled 1,185 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns across 229 carries, while adding 35 receptions for 223 yards and one score.
Daly entered the NFL as a college free agent with the Cowboys in 2018. The sixth-year veteran has appeared in 76 career games between the Lions (2021-23) and Bears (2024-25), recording nine special teams tackles and two fumble recoveries.
Holmes played collegiately at Tarleton State University (2025) and Frostburg State University (2021-24), totaling 46 career games and recording 188 tackles, 22 sacks, three forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.
Patterson IV played collegiately at Georgia Tech (2025) and Florida International University (2022-24), appearing in 52 career games and totaling 106 receptions for 1,556 yards and 10 touchdowns.
