Report Says Buccaneers Will Take Marcus Mariota No. 1
Could it be that the Jameis Winston research actually didn’t yield the best results possible for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?
Could it be that Marcus Mariota will go first overall?
If you are asking Ron Jaworski, that’s the word around the league:
“The latest I’m hearing now from my sources around the league, who are pretty wired in, is that he’s going to go number one now to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,” said Jaworski.
“Mariota’s stock, remember it was quiet for a while? And there’s a reason for that. There’s a lull every year until about 30 days before the draft. Now the coaches get involved. Prior to that, it’s the scouts, it’s the roadies that are filling out the paper work. Now the coaches get involved. Now team owners get involved. Now general managers get involved. So you’re starting to see, in my opinion, Winston’s stock starting to slide a little bit and Mariota’s stock starting to go up a little bit.”
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This is a huge turnaround, if true, and we certainly wouldn’t put it past the Bucs. In fact, these rumors started to creep up last week when Mike Mayock of NFL Network mysteriously changed his quarterback rankings less than a month before the draft, placing Mariota first ahead of Jameis Winston.
Could the Bucs have done the same?
If you’re a real conspiracy theorist here, this is a troll job by the Buccaneers on Ron Jaworski to give a last ditch effort at a King’s ransom trade for the first overall pick with — gasp — Jaworski’s beloved Philadelphia Eagles.
It’s not insane to think that the Bucs fed this information to someone knowing Jaws would get it out there, it just might be ironic that he is a big Eagles homer.
It would certainly cost the Eagles a ton to trade up from pick 20 to get Mariota at this point. They’d have to part with Sam Bradford, continue to accumulate picks, and give up multiple future first and second rounders in order to get to the #1 or #2 overall spot to get the quarterback they covet.
This could be an indirect effort by the Buccaneers to push the trade in their direction, if they don’t feel confident enough in either of these young QBs to lead their franchise at this point in time.
Or, it could just mean that the Bucs want Mariota first overall.