In a season in which a surprising number of NFL teams chose to retain three and even four quarterbacks on their 53-man roster, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went the other way and only kept two. That doesn't make the Buccaneers a complete outlier, as they were one of 12 teams that emerged from the initial cutdown to 53 players with only two active quarterbacks.
What does make the Buccaneers a bit of an outlier is the makeup of that two-man crew. After starter Baker Mayfield, the Bucs' one and only backup quarterback on the active roster is Jalon Daniels, who joined the team as an undrafted rookie in May. Of the 12 teams who kept just two passers through initial cuts, only the Buccaneers and New York Jets went with a rookie as their backup. The Jets kept Cade Klubnik, who was a fourth-round pick in the 2026 draft. The Dolphins went with Kyle McCord, who is not a rookie but who has no NFL regular-season experience, but then subsequently added Brady Cook, who has made a couple NFL starts. All the other two-QB teams have backups with starting experience, from Jameis Winston with the Giants to Tyrod Taylor with the Packers.
Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht knows that breaking the regular season with only an undrafted rookie as the safety net at quarterback is an uncommon decision but pointed to Daniels' performance throughout the offseason, training camp and the preseason as the impetus the team needed to go this route.
"Well, that's an incredible accomplishment for an undrafted rookie to get that position," Licht noted. "I can't think in the last decade another time it's happened, but the number-one thing is, he earned it. It wasn't just given to him. You don't get that honor by just being lucky or having somebody pull strings for you. He earned it, like I said. He earned the trust of his teammates, his coaches. You guys have seen him out here in practice during camp. He did some really great things in the game[s]."
Licht is correct but is actually underselling the novelty to some degree. This is the first time since 2013, when Mike Glennon opened the season second on the depth chart to Josh Freeman that the Bucs have started a campaign with a rookie as the primary reserve. And in that case, Glennon was a third-round draft pick and the Bucs were also carrying veteran Dan Orlovsky on the active roster.
In the Buccaneers' 51-season history so far, this marks just the sixth time the tem has opened a campaign with a rookie as it's number-two quarterback, whether they kept two or three of them on the active roster. The other instances were Glennon in 2013, Bruce Gradkowski behind Chris Simms in 2006, Trent Dilfer behind Craig Erickson in 1994, Vinny Testaverde behind Steve DeBerg in 1987 and Parnell Dickinson behind Steve Spurrier in 1976. In each of the other five cases, the rookie in question was a draft pick, and in fact Testaverde and Dilfer were both very high first-round selections.
This wasn't necessarily the expected outcome when the Bucs signed Daniels in May, adding him to a group that also included Jake Browning and Connor Bazelak. Browning had been signed as a free agent in March, ostensibly to give Tampa Bay a veteran option with regular season starting experience if Mayfield were to miss time. In the end, though, Daniels' performance trumped that original plan.
"You can go back and forth with the experience argument, but we'd rather have a very talented, prepared, inexperienced quarterback than going with experience just for the sake of saying the guy's experienced," said Licht. "Like all rookie quarterbacks, whether you're the number-one overall pick or undrafted, there's going to be a learning curve, there's going to be ups and downs. But we feel good about where he's at, his trajectory, and we're excited."
Head Coach Todd Bowles added an important point that helps explain why the Bucs are comfortable with this approach. Bowles said it wasn't just Daniels' physical traits that showed up in the preseason, but something else that made him seem advanced behind the very green rookie stage.
"We started seeing it in camp," said Bowles. "Once he played the first preseason game, when he had a very good game there, it wasn't so much the plays he made, it was the poise he showed. The learning got better every week and day by day, and basically he beat [Browning] out."
Daniels was indeed a bright spot during a preseason in which the Bucs' offense didn't exactly light it up – to some extent by design – completing 27 of 44 passes for 239 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions while also showing off his other offensive dimension with 37 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Daniels directed the drives that led to 30 of the Bucs' 33 offensive points scored in those three contests.
That confirmed the daily feedback that Licht and Bowles were getting from those coaches who were working with the rookie passer most closely: Offensive Coordinator Zac Robinson, Quarterbacks Coach Chandler Whitmer and Pass Game Coordinator T.J. Yates.
"Todd and I have a lot of conversations during practice, before practice, after practice, at night, in his case early in the morning," said Licht. "I think it was before our first preseason game we loved what we were seeing out here, what we were getting from Zac and Chandler and T.J. And then I think after the first preseason game with the Jets, the conversation started going towards, 'Well, he's got to prove that he can't be the number-two moreso than he's got to prove that he can be.'"
That didn't happen, and now the Bucs are in almost uncharted territory at a season's beginning, and excited to be there.
