Bucs G.M. ready to phone it in, if need be

[Captain Fear]

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The NFL’s upcoming stay-at-home draft demands layers of technology that have never had to be used.

But Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht is ready to go old school if need be.

Via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, Licht said he has faith in the technical redundancies put in place by his IT people, but is confident he’ll be able to do what he needs to do in two weeks.

“Sometimes you can get over-technical in these situations,” Licht said. “You want to make sure you have a hardline phone. You want to make sure you have several phones available to you, cell phones, what have you. But sometimes it comes down to old-fashioned picking up the phone and calling on the league office and saying, ‘We’re going to pick this player.’

“We’ll have all our scenarios done when the draft starts in terms of where I would trade up, where I would trade back. What we’d be looking for, what we would be wanting. What players we’re going to take in order — those types of things. But in terms of the technical part? We’re still working through it a little bit, but I feel very confident.”

Licht’s not some kind of Luddite, but there are a great number of personnel people in the NFL who are more comfortable with legal pads than Zoom videoconferences, and are happy to rely on their Excel spreadsheets and cell phones. Licht will have Spencer Dille, the team’s director of football technology, at his house during the draft if need be, but knows this will be unlike previous years.

“Like I said before, I’ve got a great IT department, it’s the best I’ve ever been around,” Licht said. “And we’ve already gone through that. I feel very comfortable with the information I’m going to be able to get. It’s incredible, the things that they can do. It’s going to be a little different. In between picks, instead of high-fiving and doing those types of things, I’ll probably have to take out the trash and empty the dishwasher. It’s going to be a little bit different. My kids will be in the house. They’ve already been told they got to give me some space.

“It’s going to be different, it’s going to be fun, it’s going to probably be something we remember for the rest of our lives.”

That seems clear, for reasons that go beyond any football considerations.