The buzz about Kyle Trask being the Bucs’ starting quarterback in 2023 is getting louder and louder. The former Florida Gator has plenty of support within the building, and it could finally be his time to shine after sitting behind Tom Brady and Blaine Gabbert for the last two years.

Now, Tampa Bay still could, should and will bring in a veteran signal-caller to compete with Trask. There are plenty of cheap options the team can realistically bring in within the constraints in place due to its cap situation.

Former Seahawks backup Drew Lock, who worked with new Bucs offensive coordinator Dave Canales in Seattle, could be of interest. Baker Mayfield, formerly with the Browns, Panthers and Rams is another name floating around, and Jacoby Brissett could make the Bucs his fourth team in four years.

But by all accounts, Trask will get a shot to be the guy for the Bucs in 2023. So, with that being clear, let’s revisit the 2021 second-round pick’s scouting report and evaluate the potential he may have if he wins the Bucs’ starting job this offseason.

Kyle Trask’s College Career

Florida QB Kyle Trask – Photo by: USA Today

Kyle Trask’s story is an odd one, and it’s pretty well known by now. He started as a freshman at Manvel High School in Texas, but then he didn’t start another game for the rest of his prep career. Instead, he sat behind D’Eriq King, who went on to star at Houston and Miami. Trask, for his part, was still a composite three-star recruit who ended up at Florida.

But the early part of his career with the Gators turned out to be a lot like his high school story. He redshirted in 2016, suffered a season-ending injury that cost him a chance to compete for the starting job in 2017 and backed up Feleipe Franks in 2018.

Then, when Franks suffered a season-ending injury of his own in 2019, Trask stepped in and didn’t look back. He was 8-2 as the Gators’ starter that year, a year in which he threw for 2,941 yards and 25 touchdowns to seven interceptions on 66.9% passing.

The 2020 season then saw Trask step into the national spotlight, as he completed 68.9% of his passes for 4,283 yards and 43 touchdowns to eight interceptions. At one point that season, he became the first quarterback in SEC history to throw for four touchdowns in five straight games. He set a new Gators record with his 43 passing touchdowns and was named a Heisman finalist.

Trask put on a show against Alabama, the eventual national champion that year, in the SEC Championship Game. It was a 52-46 loss, but he completed 26-of-40 pass attempts for 408 yards and three touchdowns while adding a touchdown on the ground. In his Florida career, Trask completed 67.9% of his passes for 7,386 yards and 69 touchdowns to 15 interceptions. He also ran for eight touchdowns in those three seasons. After the 2020 season, he declared for the NFL Draft.

What National Analysts Were Saying About Kyle Trask In 2021

Gators QB Kyle Trask – Photo by: USA Today

There was a general consensus about Kyle Trask ahead of the 2021 NFL Draft. Evaluators liked his size, as he came in at 6-foot-5, 240 pounds. His accuracy, decision making and overall smarts were all checked boxes in the “pros” column. NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein touted Trask’s “touch and accuracy,” while The Draft Network’s Jordan Reid praised his “eye discipline and ability to eliminate options in his reads prior to moving to the next option(s).”

There were disagreements about Trask’s arm strength, and it remains a point of contention a couple of years on from those scouting reports. Zierlein noted that the quarterback “clearly has the arm strength, touch and placement to wear out one-on-one coverage” while Bleacher Report’s NFL Scouting Department said he had “above-average arm strength.” Meanwhile, Reid had this to say:

“In the short-to-intermediate areas of the field, there isn’t much life or juice behind his throws. His ability to anticipate targets eventually coming open has helped mask some of his arm limitations, but during field throws or ones down the field, there’s a rainbow-like trajectory to them. A clear sign of average arm strength, field throws and vertical passes down the field have often turned into sinkers.”

Gators QB Kyle Trask – Photo by: USA Today

Pro Football Focus’ Sam Monson was on Reid’s side of the argument, saying Trask had “marginal NFL tools in terms of arm strength and athleticism.” Athleticism was another sticking point for many evaluators, and that’s no surprise. Trask doesn’t run particularly well, as evidenced by his 40-yard dash landing him in the fourth-percentile among quarterbacks at the time. Zierlein called Trask’s functional mobility “bel0w-average,” while Reid knocked him for his “clunky feet.”

At the same time, though, Reid did point out that the quarterback was “a frequent option on designed runs” that Florida put to use “on power read and counter concepts where he can get downhill during short-yardage situations.” This is a sentiment that Bucs offensive coordinator Dave Canales echoed last week, when he praised Trask’s “short-space quickness” and confirmed that he has no concerns about the 24-year-old having the athleticism to run his system.

Overall, the agreement on Trask was that he was a skilled passer who thrived when he had good protection and talent around him. But there was – and still is – an acknowledgement that the 6-foot-5 signal-caller has plenty of limitations. His classification from Zierlein’s draft profile was “good backup with the potential to develop into a starter” and his comparison was former Bucs Super Bowl-winning quarterback Brad Johnson.

What Pewter Report Wrote About Kyle Trask In 2021 (And The Years Since)

Bucs QB Kyle Trask and head coach Bruce Arians – Photo by: USA Today

Kyle Trask was one of Pewter Report’s “Bucs Best Bets” ahead of the 2021 Draft. The late great Mark Cook – even as a lifelong Florida State Seminole – wrote in a column that the Bucs needed to draft Trask as the heir apparent to Tom Brady. Former Pewter Reporter Jon Ledyard wrote in his own column that Trask was a fit in Tampa Bay, but a limited one as well.

Scott Reynolds wrote in his SR’s Fab 5 that Trask made sense for the Bucs. On the flip side, though, former Pewter Reporter Taylor “Grizz” Jenkins opined that the Florida quarterback may have been a wasted second-round pick.

Of course, at the time, Trask was looked at as a fit for the Bruce Arians/Byron Leftwich offense. There were similarities to draw between the Bucs’ offense and the system he ran in Gainesville.

Trask had the invaluable opportunity to sit behind and learn from Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, in 2021. He was the No. 3 quarterback on the depth chart behind Brady and Blaine Gabbert, but that didn’t stop his coaches from heaping praise on him early. In a June 2021 edition of SR’s Fab 5, Reynolds wrote about Arians and then-quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen drawing comparisons between Trask and both Brad Johnson and former Colts signal-caller Andrew Luck.

Trask was inactive for the entire 2021 season, but when Brady briefly retired last offseason, it looked like the Bucs’ starting job was going to come down to a battle between Blaine Gabbert and Kyle Trask. Then, of course, Brady returned and Trask got another redshirt year. There was, if you’ll remember, that weird contradiction last summer when Christensen said Gabbert would be QB2 and there would be no competition for that spot, only for new Bucs head coach Todd Bowles to say the opposite only days later.

Bucs QBs Tom Brady and Kyle Trask – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

It never felt like there was a true competition for the right to back up Brady, even when the 45-year-old missed an extended period of training camp and the preseason. Gabbert got reps with the ones in his absence, while Trask got reps with the twos. Then, the preseason was a forgettable one for Trask. Over two preseasons in Tampa, he has completed 72-of-129 passes (59%) for 769 yards and two touchdowns to four interceptions. He was sacked 12 times. After a preseason loss to the Titans last August, Scott Reynolds’ 2-Point Conversion column reflected the seemingly bleak future of the Kyle Trask experiment.

Trask was active a few times throughout the 2022 season and finally made his NFL debut late in the Bucs’ Week 18 loss to the Falcons. He completed just 3-of-9 passes for 23 yards, though he played with the bottom-of-the-depth-chart offensive line and supporting cast that he worked with during the preseason. The fact is, Trask has never had a chance to test himself with Tampa Bay’s top weapons.

Most recently, Reynolds wrote that “It’s Not Trask Time” after Brady retired. Though, the outlook looks different now. With new offensive coordinator Dave Canales in town and the cap situation the team finds itself in, Kyle Trask will get a shot to show that he wasn’t a wasted pick. Canales spoke highly of the former Gator, indicating that he has a lot of confidence in him if he ends up being “the guy.”

What Does Kyle Trask Have To Offer In 2023?

Bucs QB Kyle Trask – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

OK, so what’s the outlook for Kyle Trask in 2023? Well, consider everything we’ve revisited and put on the table here in the last 1,500 words or so. The soon-to-be 25-year-old had to wait his turn at Florida, and the result was spectacular for him and the Gators. Can the same story unfold for the Bucs? After two years of development, will Trask take hold of his opportunity and not look back?

Not much has conceivably changed from his pre-draft prospects. His size and accuracy are an advantage, but questions about his athleticism and overall tools remain. Now, how can the Bucs get the most out of what he does bring to the table? There are reasons to be optimistic, and one of those can actually be found in a common criticism of Trask.

A repeated narrative about him is that he only had the success that he had at Florida because of a generational tight end in Kyle Pitts and a standout wide receiver in Kadarius Toney. But what this fails to take into account is the fact that, well, he can similarly take advantage of the talent around him in Tampa Bay.

Trask will have Mike Evans and Chris Godwin as his top two receivers. He’ll have a high-potential running back alongside him in the backfield in the form of Rachaad White. His top tight end will presumably be the promising Cade Otton. And there’s no doubt that the Bucs are going to add some speed and talent this offseason, especially through the draft. So, why can’t Trask be successful in Tampa much like he was two hours north?

Bucs QB Kyle Trask – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

This is what Canales put pretty plainly in his introductory press conference last week.

“If you look at some of the skill position players that he had there: Kyle Pitts, Kadarius Toney – he had the big return in the Super Bowl – and then you have Dameon Pierce [who] was another guy, right? Well, he was able to distribute,” Canales said. “The thing that we’re going to help Kyle continue to build on here is to just be a point guard.

“Point guards don’t have to be the one to score all the points – you just distribute. Play on time, get the ball out of your hands, life is better that way when you do that. You’ve got these bears chasing you and if you don’t like bears chasing you, get rid of the ham – and that’s the football, right? So just teaching him those principles, allowing him to be a distributor.”

The new offensive system will be simpler than the old one. It’ll be easier on the quarterback, and it’ll allow him to put the talent around him to use. Motion, play-action and overall creativity will be higher than ever in Tampa. A revamped run game will help, too. It sure sounds like the Bucs will do everything they can to set the quarterback – whoever it is – up for success.

And that’s where Canales and Tampa Bay think they can get the most out of Kyle Trask. It’s up to him to seize the moment. Whether he does so or not will tell us where this team is headed in the foreseeable future.