The Buccaneers no longer have Tom Brady, with the quarterback officially announcing his retirement on Tuesday.
But the club did draft a potential successor last year in second-round pick Kyle Trask. He was on clipboard duty throughout the 2021 season as the club’s third quarterback behind Blaine Gabbert. But General Manager Jason Licht said on Tuesday that the club was very excited about Trask’s development in his first season.
“No one wants to be in a position where they don’t have a quarterback and we feel very fortunate,” Licht said on a conference call. “We’re not crowning Kyle as the heir apparent yet, but we feel very fortunate that we got him when we did last year because where he stacks up with quarterbacks in this year’s draft, [and] everybody’s going to have their own opinion, but I feel pretty good about where he stacks up with these quarterbacks. So, I feel like we made a good decision last year.”
Trask threw for 7,386 yards and 69 touchdowns in three seasons at Florida with 15 interceptions. He then completed 53 percent of his passes in the 2021 preseason for 312 yards with one touchdown and two picks.
Given Trask’s year of experience in the offense, Licht said he doesn’t think the Bucs have to speed up Trask’s development.
“I think we have him on a good track right now,” Licht said. “He’s been well coached and he’s had unbelievable resources to lean on to get to where he is right now. We’ll see where that goes. We don’t want to rush anybody, but I couldn’t think of a better experience for a young quarterback to spend his rookie year than with the greatest player of all time.”