Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Mike Glennon the biggest winner

All of the attention was focused on Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie quarterback Jameis Winston in last night’s preseason Week 2 battle against the Cincinnati Bengals after the No. 1 overall pick flopped in his preseason debut. Although there were still some questionable decisions that can be picked at, Winston had a strong game and showed off his elite arm talent a couple of times, finishing with 8-13 passing for 90 yards. There’s no doubt that Winston helped his cause, but Mike Glennon was the biggest winner on the Buccaneers yesterday.

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If we were talking about the most impressive player on the Bucs offense last night, then our attention would be directed towards Doug Martin‘s 59 yards on six carries with guards Ali Marpet and Logan Mankins chipping in. However, while Martin could be huge factor next season, neither he nor Winston have as high stakes in the preseason. Sure, both of them have to prove that they are up to the task of leading Tampa Bay to a worst-to-first turn-around and have pressure on them, but Glennon was the one auditioning yesterday.

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Although the Buccaneers have made no attempt to shop the former third-round pick out of N.C. State, you get the sense that the Bucs will have to deal him away at some point. With Winston on board, Glennon doesn’t have a place on the roster, and the Buccaneers have to feel that he’s a better option than starting quarterbacks on some teams. I mean, the Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns (unless if Johnny Manziel surprises), and Buffalo Bills could all seriously consider trading for Glennon, whose value would shoot up if a big quarterback injury were to happen.

Back in May, the Tampa Tribune’s Roy Cummings reported that the Bucs never received a call for Glennon during the draft, though there were rumblings earlier in the offseason of potential interest around the league in the 25-year-old. Based on the public comments the Buccaneers have made and how close we are to the regular season, it would be a big surprise for Glennon to be traded in 2015.

That said, Glennon, who will have one more year left on his rookie deal after this season, seems like a perfect candidate to be traded next offseason. He’ll be a no-risk investment with just one year left on his deal at $675,000, and the Buccaneers will have to get something out of him; they can’t just let him walk for free, and there’s no way they play him over Winston either.

So every time Glennon steps onto the field in a Buccaneers uniform- no matter the context of the game- he is auditioning. Yesterday’s performance had to have caught the eye of some quarterback-needy franchises, because Glennon showed excellent touch and poise in a 10-15 day with 121 yards, one touchdown, no picks, and a 113.5 QB Rating. You could argue that Winston’s tape was more impressive, but nobody helped his own cause more than Glennon, whose only realistic shot at entrenching himself as a starter is to play well enough to get traded.

Here was Glennon’s best play:

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see his work before the snap in this GIF, but, basically, Glennon saw the stacked box, audibled out of a running play, and then tossed a beautiful bomb in single coverage to Russell Shepard for a 22-yard touchdown. Dre Kirkpatrick simply had no shot there, because Glennon’s placement made that throw just about impossible to defend.

There are a few important things about this throw that are worth highlighting. Firstly, Glennon showed some third-year maturity by making the right decision. Secondly, he showed off the excellent arm talent that made him a third-round pick. Thirdly, his quick release in the face of immense pressure was just unreal. Fourthly, Glennon’s poise on that throw in the face of the blitz to toss that touchdown shows that he just may have overcome the major flaw in his game that caused him to be a third-round pick.

While he was in college, nobody questioned the fact that Mike Glennon, who is 6’6″ and has a rocket arm, had the arm talent and tools to be a franchise quarterback in the NFL. The problem is that nobody saw him as a legitimate first-round pick despite a weak QB draft class (you know, the one with E.J. Manuel and Geno Smith), because he turned into an absolute mess whenever he was under pressure.

It’s hard to tell if he’s truly fixed his issues, and it’s hard to trust a quarterback who couldn’t complete 60% of his passes in either of his first two years in the league. But Glennon wasn’t terrible in either of those years, and did an especially impressive job of limiting his mistakes.

He’s better than a couple of veteran quarterbacks getting a run at a starting gig (namely Brian Hoyer and Josh McCown), so yesterday’s display was encouraging for his chances at getting an opportunity to compete (nobody is just going to hand him the job, no matter how good his preseason QB Rating looks) for a starting position elsewhere. After all, he was 5-5 with 10.4 yards per attempt when blitzed, as per Pro Football Focus, by the Bengals, so the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have to feel good about their chances of trading him for a decent price if his work continues.

Ideally, the Buccaneers- and this is probably why they didn’t trade him to someone like the Bills or Browns this offseason- would like to receive more than a third-round pick in return after investing something in Glennon after spending a third on him in 2013, but I think they’d also be happy to only get their return on investment next offseason. If Glennon keeps it up, he could indeed fetch a third-round pick from a team with more than a dash of desperation.

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