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Tampa Bay Buccaneers are Your Hard Knocks Team

Prepare to get to know players you'll never see again.

I can honestly say I’m surprised if not a little disappointed. Wednesday afternoon the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced they would be the featured team in the 2017 edition of HBO’s Hard Knocks beginning Aug. 8.

It’s not that the Bucs won’t be an interesting subject. Frankly, the urge Jameis Winston will have to shove his very talented foot into his far less talented mouth might make it the best season yet. The issue is with the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints both on the table, why not go with one of those teams? The chance of getting Andrew Luck or Drew Brees on Hard Knocks isn’t going to come around too often.

Of course, that entire line of thinking is ridiculous on my part. If Hard Knocks is anything like it was last season with the Los Angeles Rams, then prepare for five episodes focusing on Spunk Dipstick and his five kids and their love of cargo shorts and shit like that. With the opportunity to focus their cameras on Todd Gurley, Aaron Donald and Jared Goff, the majority of last season’s Hard Knocks episodes rotated around Eric Kush, the team’s No. 3 center who didn’t even make the team. In fact, the amount of screen time a Rams player got in Hard Knocks was directly disproportional to his chances of actually landing on the 53-man roster.

So congratulations upcoming undrafted free agents Pete Pudpuller and Skippy Stinkfinger. Enjoy your HBO screen time with the Bucs on Hard Knocks. You’ll be back pumping gas at the local Citgo before September.

Simms will stick with CBS

Though he’s been kicked out of the broadcast booth, Phil Simms isn’t ready to hang up his hairpiece just yet. The former Super Bowl-winning New York Giants quarterback will join James Brown, Boomer Esiason, Bill Cowher and, for some reason, Bart Scott on CBS’ NFL Today studio show.

Simms, Esiason and Brown also pull double duty on Showtime’s Inside the NFL. Simms will be back in that role, too.

Simms addressed his silence since Tony Romo was hired to replace him in the booth with Jim Nantz with Sports Illustrated Wednesday.

“Listen, I didn’t make any comments for a lot of reasons and you want to sit there and think about it,” Simms said. “Initially was my pride hurt? Absolutely. Of course it was … So it took a little bit. Not long. I started thinking about it in a positive way and then I became excited about it. … I now get to follow the league like I want to. That was probably the most frustrating thing about my job. You do one or two games a week, you can’t really pay attention to the other teams like I wanted to do. When you do games, you are all-in on those games. On Inside The NFL, I get to say things about stuff that I never get to say in a broadcast.”

Simms has been in the booth since he retired in 1993 and took over the No. 1 color slot in 1998.

Browns have finally addressed the Osweiler situation

I’d like to believe that Cleveland Browns executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown stumbled across one of my articles. But even if he didn’t, he’s come to the smart conclusion, telling reporters that Brock Osweiler will remain with the team and compete for the starting quarterback position.

“We expect Brock to be here,” Brown said. “He’s in, done a good job, coming in the first couple days. Positive young man. He’s got some ability and talent and we look forward to him trying to establish himself here and have a chance to compete to be the starting quarterback.”

The fact is, outside of DeShaun Watson or Mitchell Trubisky, there’s nobody the Browns could draft that has more or better NFL tools than Osweiler. They’ve already eaten his big salary anyway and cutting him would serve no purpose but to let him land with another team at a much cheaper price. Why not take the kid out for a test drive? If the Browns get what the Denver Broncos got out of Osweiler in 2015, they’ll be damn glad they did.

And, frankly, if the Browns do land Watson or Trubisky (the get Trubisky at 12 in my perfect draft), there’s still no reason to dump Osweiler this season. Next year, sure. But now after already spending the money? What’s the point?

As shitty as everyone wants to say Osweiler played last season, and he wasn’t good, he still went 8-6 as a starter and won a playoff game. He completed 59 percent of his passes for 2,957 yards, 15 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. Considering the same kid went 5-2 as a starter the year before under Gary Kubiak, how about we toss a little blame at Bill O’Brien, the Houston Texans’ head coach?

Patriots get signatures from White and Butler

New England Patriots running back James White and the team have agreed on a three-year contract extension that will pay the young back $12 million with $4.6 million guaranteed. Last year White carried the ball 39 times for 166 yards, but did most of his damage as a receiver, catching 60 passes for 551 yards and five touchdowns.

White was especially effective in the Super Bowl, scoring three touchdowns on 20 touches for 139 yards.

Cornerback Malcolm Butler and the Patriots ended their franchise tag tender stalemate when Butler signed his one-year deal. As a restricted free agent tendered at the first round level, Butler will make $3.91 million this season. Of course, that is if he plays out the contract and isn’t traded.

Late Monday the Patriots extended an offer sheet to Buffalo Bills running back Mike Gillislee. The offer is for two years and $6.4 million. The Bills have the right to match the offer and keep Gillislee. Last year Gillislee carried the ball 101 times for 577 yards and scored eight touchdowns.

New England wide receiver has renegotiated his contract and taken a paycut to remain with the team. His salary will now be $1.7 million a year. Amendola caught 29 passes for 243 yards and four touchdowns last year.

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Written by Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a writer and photographer based out of East Tennessee. His work has appeared on Cracked.com, in USA Today, the Associated Press, the Chicago Cubs Vineline Magazine, AskMen.com and many other publications.

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