Calijah Kancey
The Buccaneers’ senior advisor to the general manager was chatting publicly this week.
He’s Bucco Bruce Arians, a Super Bowl-winning head coach for the good guys in red and pewter.
Joe thinks it’s so cool how Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht is so big on work-life balance, letting Arians work from the golf course and Pat McAfee’s studio every week, and do national interviews.
Arians visited The Rich Eisen Show yesterday (Joe listens on the SiriusXM app) and was asked about the 2025 NFC race and who he likes as a top dog to win the NFC.
Arians said his choice is Tampa Bay but that sort of conflicted with what he said a minute earlier.
“Right now I know this: you don’t want to play Seattle at home. You don’t want to play Detroit at home,” Arians said. “You don’t want to play really any of the really good teams at home, especially Denver, people that have that speed pass rush. Like [Thursday] night was a great example. Dallas has been playing great but those [offensive tackles] had no chance.”
Edge rush, you say?
Exciting to Joe was Arians’ reasoning behind standing behind his Bucs. It included referencing a return of defensive tackle Calijah Kancey this month.
“I’m a little bit of a homer,” Arians said. “I think the Bucs with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Jalen McMillan and then even Calijah Kancey, all maybe coming back in the next two weeks. I think the Bucs could be getting healthy at the right time. Get a couple of wins under their belt and, you know, have those two games with the Panthers and see who goes. Again, home field advantage in the playoffs is huge.”
Obviously, Arians has great intel. So Joe is feeling the fantasy on this fine Saturday. A Kancey return could be the desperately needed spark the Bucs defense needs to win in the postseason.
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