When Tom Brady elected to return to the Buccaneers after his brief retirement, he pushed second-year quarterback Kyle Trask down the depth chart.
At one point this offseason, Trask was arguably the best option to start on the Buccaneers’ roster. But then Brady came back and the team also re-signed Blaine Gabbert — the latter of which meant Trask isn’t even necessarily in line to be Brady’s backup in 2022.
Trask was a second-round pick in 2021 after excelling at Florida, particularly in 2020. He said in a Tuesday press conference that he didn’t look at Brady’s return as a move that relegated him to a different role — even though that’s essentially what happened.
“He had his own situation and he made whatever decision he felt was best for the point he was at in his career,” Trask said of Brady. “And I’m just excited to be here playing football. I’m able to take really good reps here at OTAs, competing out here. And all I can do is keep getting better.”
As for potentially being Brady’s backup in 2022, Trask said the talk outside of the building is out of his control.
“For me personally, I’m just worried about what I can control. I love to compete,” Trask said. “Me and Blaine have been having a really good past couple of weeks of OTAs. And we all love playing football and competing. Like I said, we’re just focused on getting better and that’s all we can do at the end of the day.”
Either way, Trask won’t get a chance to be the Buccaneers’ QB1 until at least 2023.