Just when you thoughts things were a bit quiet at good ole One Buccaneer Place, these quick blindsides:
Derrick Ward released. Aqib Talib suspended for the Cleveland opener. Assistant defensive line coach Chris Mosley arrested on a DUI charge.
With that news in the hopper, we need to get down to the business at hand.
In keeping with the theme "Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today" we will save Coach Raheem Morris the time and agony and present our picks for the final 53-man roster and candidates for the practice squad.
First, let's get this out of the way. Michael Clayton is hereby gone. And here's our reason. The guy made $7.5 million last year for doing nothing. If he stays on the roster and rookie Mike Williams looks at the guy and knows what he's earning for doing virtually nothing in the pass-catching industry and Williams continues to progress and has a great season and earns, oh, in the $450,000 neighborhood, then no doubt Williams would have every right to hold out next year, seeing a franchise that rewards a guy like Clayton with huge money for no output.
So let's get the good old blocker out of there. With that in mind, let's skip the Thursday night preseason game in Texas, impose our own blackout and proceed to the final 53.
OL: D. Penn, K. Vincent, J. Zuttah, J. Faine, D. Joseph, J. Trueblood, D. Dotson, J. Compas, M. Dile, X. Fulton, J. Lee. Total: 11
TE: K. Winslow Jr., J. Stevens, R. Purvis.Total: 3
WR: M. Williams, R. Brown, S. Stroughter, A. Benn, M. Spurlock, M. Stovall. Total: 6
QB: J. Freeman, J. Johnson. Total: 2
RB: C. Williams, K. Huggins, C. Smith, E. Graham, C. Pressley. Total: 5
Total offensive players: 27
DL: K. Moore, T. Crowder, G. McCoy, R. Miller, B. Price, S. White, M. Bennett, R. Sims: Total: 8.
LB: Q. Black, D. Watson, B. Ruud, A. Hayward, G. Hayes, N. Koutouvides. Total: 6.
DB: A. Talib, R. Barber, S. Piscitelli, T. Jackson, M. Lewis, E.J. Biggers, S. Jones, C. Grimm, C. Lynch. Total: 9
Total defensive players: 23
Special Teams: P: B. Bowden, K: C. Barth; LS: A. Economos.
Total special teams: 3; All Total: 53.
Practice Squad: E. Lorig, R. McCoy, P. Parker, J. Mastrud, R. Carpenter, R. Taylor, C. Brown.
There you've got 'em. Also have the full compliment of seven practice squad players. Notice we're going with two quarterbacks. Why carry three? Michael Spurlock, who is the wildcat QB, can be the "emergency" third guy. Besides, if both Freeman and Johnson go down in the same game, it doesn't matter.
On the practice squad are newcomers Preston Parker, Rendrick Taylor and Eric Lorik.
This should save Raheem some time, he's got bigger fish to fry, like that Cleveland game plan.
We'll see how close we are on September 5.
