Candy Man Signs/Grant Next?

Well, the Bucs made a signing, bringing in former first round CB Sammy Davis. This is another solid pick-up of a player who fell out of favor, and who sounds an awful lot like Buchannon did before he earned a starting spot over Bolden last year. Needless to say, the Bucs want to make sure that they have great depth at CB this year, and this signing will, one way or the other, help insure that.

Now comes the fun part. Charles Grant is coming for a visit to One Buc Palace. Now the Saints have already franchised Grant, but a deal hasn't been signed yet. If the Bucs wanted to sign Grant, they could make an offer and see if the Saints match. If they did not, then the Bucs could sign Grant but they would have to give up 2 first round picks for the player. That's not going to happen. What I suspect will happen is that the Bucs will try to work out a trade where the Saints will get a combination of lower round picks, possibly this year, maybe this and next, and/or a player, or some combination thereof. It's hard to tell exactly what the Bucs might give up for Grant, but Kelley is one possibility that the Bucs may be looking at, as the Saints are believed to be weak at corner.

Now, some will argue, based on the last two years, that Grant isn't worthy of the attention that the Bucs appear to be paying him. Unfortunately, that would be a short sighted look at his stats. From '02 to '04 he played at the right defensive end spot, where he recorded 27.5 sacks and 141 tackles. His rookie year, '02, he had 7 sacks and 30 tackles, then had 10 and 10.5 sacks the following two years with 65 tackles in '04. In '05, the Saints switched him to LDE, where he played last year, and he recorded just 2.5 sacks that year, along with 44 tackles, but then improved to 6 sacks last year with 49 tackles. So, yeah, his LDE stats don't look all that hot, but his RDE stats are top 5 DE material, and that's likely to be where he goes if the Bucs pick him up. Quite frankly, I think the Bucs plan to trade Rice, and this move may clear the way, if the Bucs find a reasonable compensation package to get Grant.

It will be very interesting to see how this works out. The Bucs are really trying to address their holes with a combination of young players, and older, stop-gap, veterans that can help them win this year, without breaking the bank for the following years. It will also allow them a lot more flexibility in the draft to go Best Available Player (BAP) as opposed to chasing needs.