Donovan Smith Will Be A Buc Next Season and Will Be Paid Well For It.

A lot of fans mock drafts have OT Jonah Williams posted at the top of their list. Well, accord to Scott Reynolds, Mark Cook, and Trevor Sikkema of Pewterreport.com you can lay those selections to rest. Quoting their Fab 5:

“The Bucs are committed to keeping Smith and will either come to terms on a multi-year contract extension worth $12-$13 million per year, or slap the franchise tag on Smith for one year at $14 million. Either way, Smith will be protecting Jameis Winston’s blindside for a fifth-straight season in Tampa Bay in 2019.”

This isn’t a real surprise if you look at it. Starting most of his games through his 4 year time with the Buccaneers, he’s been a reliable player.

Quoting the stats given by PR:

“Tampa Bay likes Smith’s presence in the run game better than PFF, which gave him a 52.7 run-blocking grade along with a 69.9 pass-blocking grade in 2018. That produced an overall grade of 66.4 mark, which made him an above average offensive tackle on the PFF grading chart.”

While there may be other OTs available in FA and the draft, locking Smith down would put allow the front office to focus on other places of need and different draft selections. This definitely narrows down the mystery of the draft pick a small bit.