News broke on Wednesday of a settlement in the sexual assault civil case involving former Bucs wide receiver Antonio Brown. Now a free agent after signing a one-year deal last November with Tampa Bay, there have been some discussions about re-signing Brown for the 2021 season.

Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht addressed the team’s interest in Brown during a Zoom conference call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

“We’ve had discussions throughout the offseason,” Licht said. “As you can tell we’ve put an emphasis on bringing back our players from last year that contributed to our success. He would be no different. We’ll continue to have talks and see where it goes.”

Licht said that Wednesday’s settlement news has little bearing on whether or not Brown rejoins the Buccaneers.

Bucs WRs Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

“It’s always good when there is some resolution, but we signed him last year with the civil case looming,” Licht said. “All I can go off of is what we saw of Antonio on our team this year. Obviously he’s a good player and he was a great teammate. To have this resolved it certainly helps, but that wasn’t necessarily the deciding factor of whether or not we’re going to continue to talk.”

There have been some reports of Seattle and perhaps other teams also being in the mix for Brown’s services this offseason.

Brown caught 45 passes for 483 yards (10.7 avg.) and four touchdowns during the regular season. He had eight receptions for 81 yards and two more TDs in the postseason, including a key score in Super Bowl LV.