Why he fell.

The NFL is a risk-averse league. And Joe gets it.

For example: It’s really, really easy for any fan to holler that the Bucs ought to trade draft picks for a player, or that the Bucs should pick Player-X with a first-round pick. But if the move doesn’t work, do fans risk getting run from a multi-million dollar job over it? No, but a general manager might.

Risk aversion may very well have been the reason why Rueben Bain fell to the Bucs at No. 15.

Charlie Campbell of Walter Football called his NFL sources to ask why Bain fell to the Bucs since just about everyone thought he was a top-10 pick, maybe better.

Campbell found out many general managers picking ahead of the Bucs were either spooked by Bain’s profile of not neatly fitting as a defensive end or a defensive tackle, and yes, the dreaded short arms.

In short (not in arms), NFL shot-callers with the top-14 picks weren’t willing to get into hot water with their owners over Bain.

Sources from multiple teams provided some differing reasons. One, a few sources felt that Bain slid just because of the team’s need and preference in the top 14. Sources from a couple of teams that passed on Bain said they had him a bit lower than the media consensus. During the season, we [heard] some teams saw him as a tackle/end tweener, and they did not see him as a true top-10 talent. Those factors combined to have Bain go lower than the media expected.

Just after the draft, Dull Patrick interviewed ESPN NFL analyst Louis Riddick, the former Eagles suit, and Patrick wanted to know how in the world Bain could fall to the Bucs.

Riddick essentially said what Campbell typed: general managers are loathe to take gambles.

If they ignore data — and NFL owners are generally data people reared in the business world — and then they could face an enraged owner wanting to know why the general manager ignored intel and threw away millions of the owner’s money.

There are only 32 jobs titles of GM in the world of the NFL, Riddick noted, and general managers won’t deliberately grease the wheels for their owners to run them.