Buccaneers

Bucs GM Jason Licht admitted that the team would love to add another tight end to the roster during the draft. Whether that’s a front-line start or a depth piece remains to be seen.

“This year’s draft has a lot of tight ends, so we just wanted to do our due diligence and get to know them as much as we can, just like we do most positions,” Licht said, via the team’s website. “So yeah, it would be great to add a tight end to the roster that brings an element that maybe some of the others don’t. We’re happy with our group right now, but we’re just doing our due diligence.”

Licht added that the team is exploring options to add to the team’s quarterback room.

“We’ve looked at all the quarterbacks in this year’s draft, and we do it every year,” Licht said. “We haven’t drafted a lot since I’ve been here, quarterbacks. But I’ll kind of echo the same thing I said – we signed Jake Browning and we like him. We really like ‘Baze’ (Connor Bazelak) and what he showed us last year and we had him all year. [We will] give a chance for the new staff to see him here coming up here during the offseason…But if there’s one that we like, that we feel comfortable taking at the right spot, it’s something that we’ve talked about. It’s something that we’ve talked about [doing] every year. So we’ll just kind of have to see how it falls.”

Licht said the team has done its homework on pass rushers in this draft class, but noted that it doesn’t have a strong track record of drafting players at that position.

“It is tough. There [are] only so many that you could call truly impactful players,” Licht explained. “We found going back over the last few years that the players that we thought were going to be good, most of them ended up being good. We just didn’t have the opportunity to take [them] or we took another position before them that we’re happy with in most cases. There’s a lot that goes into it. You’ve got your speed rushers, you’ve got your power rushers. The ones that have a little bit of both are usually the ones that are the most productive in the NFL. A lot of them have certain traits about them – personality traits – that make them tick a little bit more than others. So that’s why we do all the work that we do on them. It’s not for lack of trying. It’s not that we don’t believe in having edge rushers. We’ve had more success trading for or signing them than we have drafting, and I’ll be the first to admit that. But it’s not that we didn’t [like] any of the rushers that are currently making a lot of noise in the NFL…It’s a position that you can’t have too many of, but this year there’s a decent amount and we’ll have to see how it goes. We’ve done a lot of work on them.”

Panthers

• Panthers GM Dan Morgan says team will wait until after the draft before exercising the fifth-year option on QB Bryce Young: “We’ll get that done once he gets back in the building.” (Person)
• The Panthers released veteran DL A’Shawn Robinson in March to free up $10.5 million in salary cap space, leading to him signing with the Buccaneers the next day. Morgan said parting with Robinson was the nature of the business: “A’Shawn—great dude, great leader. We’ll definitely miss him around here. It’s definitely just part of the business.” (PanthersWire)

Saints

• Michigan WR Donovan McCulley had a private workout with the Saints. (Pete Nakos)
• UCF DE Malachi Lawrence had 16 official 30 visits, including with the Saints. (Aaron Wilson)
• N.C. State TE Justin Joly met in person with the Saints’ TE coach before his pro day. (Justin Melo)