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00:00With the news out of Tampa that they've re-upped their coach and GM.
00:06Yeah, this is a good move, Scott, to make sure there's no conjecture, no wondering.
00:13So the Buccaneers management, we're talking about ownership,
00:16extended the contracts of Jason Light, the general manager.
00:18He's done a very good job, no doubt.
00:20He's one of the better drafting general managers in the league.
00:22And Todd Bowles, who's their head coach, and they run their defense the way that Todd wants it.
00:28And they're a really good football team.
00:30Now, they're the class of the NFC South, though, Scott, the odds makers don't think they're a lock.
00:36They're actually plus 105 to win that division.
00:39Atlanta's plus 210.
00:40But the bottom line is they've been dominant for years in that division.
00:44There's no question about it.
00:45They're a good team.
00:46They're well coached.
00:47Now, the reason why this is important, and they obviously could have waited.
00:51They were doing it in late June here.
00:52They could have done it closer to training camp.
00:54But the bottom line is now you get this out of the way.
00:58So let's say there's some free agents that are still on your list that you want to bring in.
01:02And a coaching agent finds out, hey, listen, or a player agent finds out, listen, you know,
01:09these guys might be out after the season if they don't win.
01:11Well, that's out the door because they've extended these contracts.
01:14This also means something for free agency in March.
01:16This means something for any prospective coach that Todd Bowles wants to come in because you know that he's not a lame duck coach.
01:25And also, most importantly, Scott, for the current players, they know that Todd Bowles is going to be here.
01:31That's huge because from covering buildings, when players know that the guy's on the final year's deal,
01:39and they go, well, this guy could be out of here, so I'm going to play for myself, you never want that.
01:45And that's not going to happen here, and this is so important.
01:47Give Bucs management, we're talking about ownership credit, the Glazer family.
01:51Because, Scott, they've rarely extended their head coaches when they should have.
01:55They've done a lot of things where they've let coaches' contracts run out.
01:59I remember Mark Dominick, the Buccaneers GM, and Greg Sciano, and that situation,
02:04they let Mark's contract expire, but they're not doing that here, and good for them.
02:09And I'll tell you what, I think they're a lot better than they get credit for.
02:14This team's a playoff team.
02:17I love Baker.
02:19I love Evans.
02:21Let's face facts.
02:23They win.
02:24And the fact that they're putting other teams in front of them, to me, is kind of amazing.
02:30And I've got to give Jason Lake credit.
02:33In Baker Mayfield, it didn't work out, obviously, with the Browns at all.
02:36The Rams, the Panthers, you think he's running out of chances, and the fourth time is a charm.
02:44Baker Mayfield right now is a top-10 quarterback, and he's really, really good.
02:48Not the biggest guy in the world, but I can tell you that the players rally around him.
02:54He's a great leader.
02:55This has been a great story, Scott.
02:57We've seen, we saw this with Geno Smith come out of nowhere after 10 years.
03:02This story's incredible.
03:03Like, they've got their quarterback in Baker Mayfield.
03:05That, you have no idea how important that is.
03:07They've got a franchise left tackle and worse.
03:09You mentioned Mike Evans, who's certainly going to be a Hall of Famer.
03:12There's no doubt about that.
03:13Chris Godwin has been a great story of development, and he's come back from yet another major injury.
03:18But they've addressed that position for the future with Emeko Buka in the first round, the receiver out of Ohio State.
03:25It's just a really good football team, and they are clearly the class of the NFC South.

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