Mike Florio and Chris Simms analyze a behind-the-scenes moment from the Bucs during the draft and explore why it suggests they were considering taking Jack Campbell in Round 1 if he’d been available.

Video Transcript

MIKE FLORIO: So we play the Buccaneers thing because there's a clip floating around, and we'll be the judge of this. Pete has vetted it, but I'm not sure it's been vetted the way that I would vet it. So here's a look inside the Buccaneers draft room when the Lions took linebacker Jack Campbell just before the Bucs were on the clock. Because the thinking is, maybe the Lions couldn't have traded down to Campbell. Maybe the Bucs were waiting to get him. Have a look and a listen.

TODD BOWLES: That Iowa linebacker is a Dan Campbell kind of guy. We still had two guys that we really liked on the board with Kancey being one of them. And once we had a shot, either way, Detroit picked. And when Detroit picked the other way and pick the linebacker, and we got a chance to get Kancey, it was pretty good. It's a great feeling, actually.

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MIKE FLORIO: All right, that last little piece from Bowles suggests that they were looking at Campbell when Detroit went the other way, right? Because then they would have had two guys still left. It does imply, when you listen to the whole thing, they had two guys and then they had one guy.

CHRIS SIMMS: Right, right. They did.

MIKE FLORIO: Possibly. And as you pointed out, there would have been a reason to get Jack Campbell.

CHRIS SIMMS: Yeah. No, I think a lot of people are making it more of a big deal about, oh look, because the Lions got dragged through the mud a little bit with, oh, you could have got Jack Campbell in the second round. We discussed this. So what? OK, great. I don't know.

Obviously, this is proving different, but what I said to you during the break and what to me is the big thing here that people are missing, forget all where you could have got him. But man, I mean, Devin White and what he's talking about and wanting to be traded in the contract and all of that. And then here's a guy that are they drafting him to be the replacement for Devin White so they can say, see you later? That's where my mind went in this conversation. That's where I found that very interesting, that conversation with what Todd Bowles was talking about.

MIKE FLORIO: Yeah. I mean, either way, Lavonte David is getting toward the end. Devin White wants a trade, refusing to do it. And that may have been a guy that they were thinking about taking. Now, they're always very happy with the guy they get and the argument is, and it should be, we got exactly the guy we wanted.

It's better to not have. See, if you're going to have that access, you need to make sure it makes you look like you definitely got the guy you wanted. That video makes us think, maybe they would have taken Jack Campbell if he would have been there. Let's take a break. We're going to draft the best non-quarterbacks from the NFC East when this Thursday edition of PFT Live continues right after this.

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