Mark Dominik spoke for five or ten minutes at the annual league meeting today and said pretty much nothing. At least nothing you haven’t heard. “We’re building through the draft”, “We’re not being cheap”, “Remember when we used to spend lots of money?” and so on blah blah blah. The only interesting part came when Dominik was trying desperately to prove that the Glazers really aren’t cheap by recalling the Kellen Winslow contract from last year.

“But the same team last year used a second round pick to trade for Kellen Winslow. And we gave Kellen Winslow at that time a contract to make him the highest-paid tight end. A lot of people questioned that and I understand. He goes out and catches 77 balls, sets a franchise record for tight ends. I’m glad we did that deal now.”

If Dominik shuts his yapper right now, he makes a cogent (though repetitive) point and we all continue on with this abortion of an offseason as though everything makes sense. But if he did that, you wouldn’t be reading this.

“Because now we’d be sitting here on the final year of his deal and now what kind of deal are we looking at? At the time, we spent the money because we saw a guy who was a long-term goal guy. Again, we spent the money there where we wanted to have a player here for a long time.”

If you are reading this and your name is Barrett Ruud, you’d be perfectly within your rights to have already chucked your computer out the window into your backyard cornfield by this point. (All homes in Nebraska have backyard cornfields, right?) It was bad enough when Winslow, the new guy, got the contract last year and none of the players who had been drafted by the Bucs did. At least the Bucs were paying lip service to those guys and saying that they would eventually get their deals. But now Dominik singles out Winslow as a player he wants to have around for a long time and therefore worth a contract, implying that the contractless Ruud (and Donald Penn and Maurice Stovall and Jeremy Trueblood and Cadillac Williams) isn’t.

Not nice, Mark. If your whole plan is to ditch what you’ve got and build completely from rookies and second-year players, just trade Ruud on draft day and pick his replacement in the second round. It would be better than the level of disrespect you’re PUBLICLY throwing his way. I’m not sure if you think Ruud isn’t a good enough linebacker despite his high tackle totals every year or if you think he’s not a good enough leader or what, but this has gone from neglect to downright aggressive antipathy. Maybe next you want to insult his mother? Because that’s about the only place left to go.

They’re lucky there’s still a draft because no rookies would want to voluntarily sign with the Bucs after seeing how they treat the players that gave them their first four years in the league.

Mark Dominik spoke for five or ten minutes at the annual league meeting today and said pretty much nothing. At least nothing you haven’t heard. “We’re building through the draft”, “We’re not being cheap”, “Remember when we used to spend lots of money?” and so on blah blah blah. The only interesting part came when Dominik was trying desperately to prove that the Glazers really aren’t cheap by recalling the Kellen Winslow contract from last year.

“But the same team last year used a second round pick to trade for Kellen Winslow. And we gave Kellen Winslow at that time a contract to make him the highest-paid tight end. A lot of people questioned that and I understand. He goes out and catches 77 balls, sets a franchise record for tight ends. I’m glad we did that deal now.”

If Dominik shuts his yapper right now, he makes a cogent (though repetitive) point and we all continue on with this abortion of an offseason as though everything makes sense. But if he did that, you wouldn’t be reading this.

“Because now we’d be sitting here on the final year of his deal and now what kind of deal are we looking at? At the time, we spent the money because we saw a guy who was a long-term goal guy. Again, we spent the money there where we wanted to have a player here for a long time.”

If you are reading this and your name is Barrett Ruud, you’d be perfectly within your rights to have already chucked your computer out the window into your backyard cornfield by this point. (All homes in Nebraska have backyard cornfields, right?) It was bad enough when Winslow, the new guy, got the contract last year and none of the players who had been drafted by the Bucs did. At least the Bucs were paying lip service to those guys and saying that they would eventually get their deals. But now Dominik singles out Winslow as a player he wants to have around for a long time and therefore worth a contract, implying that the contractless Ruud (and Donald Penn and Maurice Stovall and Jeremy Trueblood and Cadillac Williams) isn’t.

Not nice, Mark. If your whole plan is to ditch what you’ve got and build completely from rookies and second-year players, just trade Ruud on draft day and pick his replacement in the second round. It would be better than the level of disrespect you’re PUBLICLY throwing his way. I’m not sure if you think Ruud isn’t a good enough linebacker despite his high tackle totals every year or if you think he’s not a good enough leader or what, but this has gone from neglect to downright aggressive antipathy. Maybe next you want to insult his mother? Because that’s about the only place left to go.

They’re lucky there’s still a draft because no rookies would want to voluntarily sign with the Bucs after seeing how they treat the players that gave them their first four years in the league.