Thursday's NFL: Buccaneers GM says no intention to trade LB Devin White

Tampa, Fla. — The Buccaneers have no intentions of trading star linebacker Devin White, Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht said Thursday.

Last month, the 25-year-old who helped Tampa Bay win the Super Bowl in his second season posted cryptic messages on social media that suggested he may have played his last game with the Bucs. ESPN and NFL Network reported this week that White has requested a trade.

White is seeking a long-term contract and entering the final year of the deal he signed as the fifth overall selection in the 2019 draft. The Bucs picked up the fifth-year option that'll pays him $11.7 million in the upcoming season.

“First of all, we all have all the respect in the world for Devin. He’s done some great things for us as a player and we look forward to more from him in the future,” Licht said during the team’s annual pre-draft media availability.

“He’s on our team. We are looking forward to this season. We’re gearing up for the season with the draft right now, free agency, and we’re looking forward to him being part of this team,” Licht added. “If he has the kind of year we all think he’s capable of, we can hopefully put this to rest and everybody’s happy.”

White, a team captain, became an immediate starter as a rookie and had a career-best nine sacks in 2020. That same year, he had a breakout postseason in helping Tom Brady lead the Bucs to the second Super Bowl title in franchise history.

He had another solid season in 2022 with 124 tackles, 5½ sacks and 16 quarterback hits, but also drew some criticism on social media in October for what was perceived as a lack of hustle on a key play during a nationally televised prime-time loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Licht was asked if he envisioned the possibility of White holding out from training camp or maybe not playing under his current contract if the linebacker remains frustrated by a lack of progress toward a new deal.

“I can’t look into the future,” Licht said. “Like I said, we have the utmost respect for Devin. That’s part of the business world of ... this job that I don’t like. He’s a competitor, he’s a player. Everybody holds him in high regard."

First QB helmet designed to help reduce concussions approved

The first quarterback-specific helmet designed to help reduce concussions has been approved for use by the NFL and NFLPA, the AP has learned.

The helmet, manufactured by Vicis, reduces severity of helmet-to-ground impacts, which league data says account for approximately half of quarterback concussions, including the one suffered by Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa last season when his head slammed violently against the turf during a Thursday night game against Cincinnati.

“We’ve now analyzed with our engineers and with the Players Association more than a 1,000 concussions on field, we have a pretty good database of how these injuries occur,” NFL executive Jeff Miller told the AP about the helmet-to-ground impacts. “This helmet performs better in laboratory testing than any helmets we have ever seen for those sorts of impacts.”

The helmet performed 7% better than the most popular helmet worn by quarterbacks last season, the league said in a memo sent to team executives on Thursday.

Jason Neubauer, an executive for Vicis, said the company began designing its Zero2 Matrix QB helmet in early 2022.

“The unique thing is that it has a deformal outer shell, which means when you take an impact in any location on that helmet, it will deform or basically dent in that location to absorb the impact,” Neubauer said. “What that means for us, as designers or engineers, as we’re looking to optimize it for different types of impacts, we’re able to change unique locations to try to optimize the impact mitigation in any one area.”

It’s unknown how many quarterbacks will switch to the new QB-specific helmet. The league and the players’ union share information from the helmet studies with teams so players make informed decisions on helmet choice. The only other position-specific helmet already approved is the Vicis Zero2-R Trench for offensive and defensive linemen.

The memo sent to teams also includes the results of the 2023 helmet laboratory testing study. Miller told the AP seven helmets the league highly recommended in 2020 have now been downgraded to prohibited as a result of new testing.

“That’s a great sign,” Miller said. “Hopefully we can continue to stimulate that either with position-specific helmets designed for each position group or for a general all-purpose helmet to be able to say to players: ‘Work with us, be willing to change helmets because better and better products are coming online every year.’”