NFC South Notes: Buccaneers, Panthers, Saints

Buccaneers

• Buccaneers first-round DT Vita Vea is still sporting a boot on his left foot, but the good news is that he was walking like he won’t have it on long, according to Greg Auman.

Panthers

Bills WR Kelvin Benjamin tells Tim Graham of the Athletic that he believes he would have been more successful early in his NFL career if he had been drafted by a team other than the Panthers.

“I mean, I felt like I would’ve been even more successful if,” Benjamin said. “Looking back on it, I should’ve just been drafted by somebody else. I should’ve never went to Carolina. Truly, I just think Carolina was bad for me. It was a bad fit from the get-go.”

Benjamin seemed to call into question Panthers QB Cam Newton and his accuracy for being part of the issue.

“If you would’ve put me with any other quarterback, let’s be real, you know what I’m saying?” Benjamin said. “Any other accurate quarterback like [Aaron] Rodgers or Eli Manning or Big Ben [Roethlisberger] — anybody! — quarterbacks with knowledge, that know how to place a ball and give you a better chance to catch the ball. It just felt like I wasn’t in that position.

Saints

Jay Bromley was considered to be one of the best defensive tackles in this year’s free agent class, but he found a limited amount of interest on the open market before agreeing to a deal with the Saints.

Bromley says free agency was a “humbling” experience for him.

“At the end of the day, someone else will always determine your value,” Bromley said, via Nola.com. “So, I realized that, and that’s the humbling aspect of life. No matter what I do, somebody else is going to determine how much I get paid or how much I’m worth, and if I think differently, then I’ve got to prove them differently.

“Obviously, they just didn’t see what they wanted to see,” Bromley said of teams not signing him. “They didn’t see me play the run the way they wanted to see, they didn’t see me rush the passer the way they wanted. So, I just have to realize that everything I’ve done the last four years wasn’t good enough.“