Young Depth with potential is always good stuff.

I'd love to get all three of these guys...Paymah will be a solid CB IMO and is good for the system. Crowell could start for us and Barnes could be our first back-up at the tackle positions, leaving Zuttah doing his natural guard positions and even center if needed...

I second the thought we should land all three of these guys..THey would help add depth and help to round out the team before the draft..I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

I also agree,these are young depth guys with potential and we need that in these positions,hope we sign them.

Yep. Like all three of them. Sad to here Paymah didn't sign and is going to visit other teams.

I keep reading these rumors that Aquan Boldin is going to be traded to the Eagles. I hope if he is on the block that we are really trying to get him. Our offense would have no excuse to fail with Boldin and Bryant lined up outside, Winslow in the slot and Graham/Ward in the backfield. Hell, I keep hearing Lienhart might be on his way out too. If we made a blockbuster trade and got both of them we'd have our QB competition too!

I can dream. I do believe in building defense thru the draft and offense more thru FA though. Hope we aren't done making moves. Something tells me there will be a few more big names switching teams before the draft.

I'm not so sure about Leinart. He really didn't play very well for Arizona when given the chance. He might be another one of those college stud QB's that just doesn't pan out in the NFL. He doesn't even have an excuse when his receivers were Boldin and Fitz.

I do like all of these players also. Very good depth and a possibility of even starting if they excel. Sometimes the change of scenery really helps a player even if he wasn't on the decline. Sometimes he just clicks with the coaching staff or the system, no matter how similar, and he becomes a really good fit. Go bucs and here's hoping that we sign all of the RIGHT guys, even if it is not necessarily the ones that we were hoping for! ! ! ! ! !

JDouble: I'm just curious; how do you have so much time to write all this stuff?

Well Scubog, my 3 posts on this thread took about 2 minutes total to type. Two minutes and 30 seconds if you include this one. I'm just not that busy that two minutes and 30 seconds seems like alot of time to me. Why are you concerned?

I would love to have Barnes as our backup OT. He's one of the best run blocking OT's in the league. He's a better run blocker than Penn and just as good a pass protector as Trueblood. Sign him and give him S. Mahan's locker!

Did you guys hear Geno Hayes was stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife over the weekend? His girlfriend decided to end an argument with cutlery, I guess.

He's out of the hospital and apparently doing OK. Wonder why PR hasn't carried the news?

Poor Geno... I too dated a few nut jobs when I was 21... it has its benefits, but then stuff like this happens...

Crazy thing is in the link I saw in the HCSO police report it says she's 5'3 190lbs, he's lucky she didn't really F him up...

Oh yeah, I like all 3 too...

So where is the update to this story ????Its now after 4pm in Florida,and no follow up news what so ever..It seems to be a slow news day,so why is news taking sooooo long ?Did they sign?Are they going to sign?Give us something....

And I hope its not a video report-those blow for the most part...

i saw on nfl.com that brooks isn't planning on retiring and he wants to play 1 more year, now for the love of god please have a heart and resign him to a 1 year deal don't he deserve to at least retire a buccaneer, even if not to play that much at least to provide depth besides who better to come in teach the young guys, his leadership skills are invaluable, now sign him

NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jmekern - Be real careful, this is a really touchy subject around here...According to all these experts on this board he's done...Maybe they should watch more of this....

http://msn.foxsports.com/video/NFL?vid=66d1e2ad-e82f-4396-b7d0-02967e03dafd

bucfan47 - amen to that!

Get Brooks back here and let's tear it up!

Boldin & Leinart would be quite impressive!

I'm not against Brooks coming back for a year. It's just, how do you have Brooks sitting on the bench and let our young LBs get experience? If he is willing to step back and have a decreased role then he'd obviously be great to have for his mentoring and leadership....it would just be really wierd to see Brooks sitting on the sideline for 3/4s of the game.

That's where we ultimately disagree. You guys think because Brooks has a hamstring injury which hurt his overall play during the month of December that he's officially done.

Newsflash: Players get hurt, and it's going to limit them in some capacities until they get better.

My whole point is to me, it's unbelievable that most fans were so ready to throw the face of the franchise under the bus and consider him washed up and "Good riddance" and yada yada yada when the facts are before he got injured both he and Ruud were the playmakers on this Buccaneers team. Brooks made some huge plays during the course of last season and even though he's lost some obvious steps in the speed column he's undoubtebly better than most young inexperienced LB's around the league. I'd take Brooks and his leadership over any of our younger LB's right now, regardless of most of your opinions of him.

Regardless of the fact the Bucs have chosen to get younger, you don't let players like him go IMO when they still have the ability to make plays.

I watched the tape, it don't lie. I watched countless games early and late in the year, and even in person "@ Atlanta" and saw Brooks' leadership on display with my own two eyes and he still had it. He still had the ability to make plays, and he's instincts were simply better than even Ruud's, who's now our best LB on the team. Ruud is better than Brooks because he's younger and more athletic, but it's still not by near as much as most of you would think.

It was a downright boneheaded move by the organization, regardless of what you say, and when you see experts like Adam Schein, who's well respected throughout the league saying things like this about our organization, it makes you sick.

The guy can still play fellas. Go back and watch some tape. If you don't he's better than Hayward or Black, then I can't help you. I watched Hayward and Black on special teams "@ Atlanta" get called for ridiculous penalties back-to-back that crippled our field position in a HUGE game in December. What happens when there's nobody with any leadership to bail these guys out in a real game? No excuse not to have him on the team. No way.

If anyone deserves to be replaced, it's Barber. Unless we address the CB situation in the draft, Barber WILL be forced to play on an island again this season for the majority of the season and there were games like Chicago and Detroit, that teams isolated him and abused his lack of speed and height and at times, made you wonder why Barber was on the field. Well, he was all we had and it looks as if he's all were gonna have heading into this season.

But enough of this...You know where I stand.

As much as I can't stand 47s stance on the coaching changes I have to some what agree with him here fellas. How can a 6th rnd pick be better after 2 yrs of special teams play be better than an 11 time all pro??? Why because he's younger & faster? What good is speed if you still take the wrong angles or miss your assignments? I do believe with time & the right coaching they CAN be better but if Brooks had a hamstring injury it cleary was the reason he wasn't making plays. thats why I'm so optimistic about Luke MCKown.Brooks presence will be missed ! Ronde has alwys been slow but always makes plays. He's still more physical than Buchanon. If our front 4 had played better our entire secondar would have been better! I'm sure thats a reason they kept him & let Buchanon walk. I might agree with some of you points 47 but could you down play some of this gloom and doom? Our offense will be much better & I belive this defense will still be able to keep us in the games.

diesel - I'll try to be more positive, I really will.

I'll say this..I'm all for Luke McCown getting his shot and I'm backing him 100%. I think he's a first class dude and I think the organization has really helped him by bringing in Kellen Winslow. So I'll commend the FO for that much. (You hearing this Double?) -- I'm being positive!!

I'll also try to remain cautiously optismistic with our defense, but I'll still say if you're going to start over at sqaure one at the LB positions, I would have been more ok with allowing Cato June to leave and allow Hayes/Black/Hayward an opportunity for one of them to start, while the others serve as quality backups for next season. I'm just not for opening TWO STARTING SPOTS to be opened up to guys that may have talent, (I've never questioned that), but at this point in their careers really don't know what they're doing.

It's a risky move by the FO IMO, and one that I hope pays off for them, and maybe it will in the long run, but I think it drastically will hurt them next season and I foresee the unexperience really hurting this team in terms of plays they'll miss. We'll see.

Now that's fairly optismitic now guys! Huh? Some of you never thought I had it in me. Again I'm all for them having success, but the path to rebuilding a team will always be debateable. What's hard to argue is the FO doing enough to address the defense this offseason. I know it's early, but the amount of pressure they are now putting on themselves to hit in the draft is absolutely enormous to me and quite frankly, with the upcoming schedule I just find it amazing they would put this kind of pressure on themselves heading into the draft.

I honestly think it was truly unintended, as I feel the Bucs FO was overwhelmed in the beginning which led to them missing out on many available free agents to help this defense. That's probably one part I personally feel is 100% true. The Bucs have made it known they loved both Chris Canty and Antonio Smith, but as far as we can tell, never was able to put in the first phone call to these guys. Nonetheless, they may have called Canty, but no visit was ever setup which is heartbreaking as he has the respect of many coaches around the league. The guy can flat out play.

But I'll remain hopeful as we go foreward. I just hope they hit in the draft. Wouldn't hurt my feelings if they went all defense with the exception of maybe one WR.

Couldn't agree with you more about Brooks

...AND Barber especially against Detroit last year

Yes and what goes unnoticed by most fans is that A). Tampa still won the game and B). Barber actually made some plays in the game including one interception.

But what gets lost in the shuffle is that A). The Lions were awful last year but Barber was flat-out abused early on in the game. Good teams would have found a way to put us away because of it, and I remember specifically scratching my head as to why Barber was still trying to check Calvin Johnson when they picked on him three straight times (including a TD) early on in the game. It amazed me.

But, to Barber's credit, the veteran in him came out in the 4th quarter and played very well. It was still enough for me to show me he can no longer check the above average WR's in this league. The plays he was beat on were not difficult running routes for Johnson, he simply went up and caught the ball.