Report: Tampa Bay Buccaneers plan to release RB Leonard Fournette on March 15

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are moving on from Leonard Fournette, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Tuesday. Tampa Bay plans to release him when the league year starts March 15.

Fournette still has $2 million guaranteed left on his contract, and he’d have been guaranteed another $2 million on March 19, Pelissero said. As a result, the Buccaneers can spread out the salary cap hit by releasing him at the beginning of the league year.

Fournette just wrapped up his third season with the Buccaneers and emerged as a key part of the passing game. He had a career-high 523 receiving yards and three touchdowns in the air to go with 668 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the ground. He appeared in 14 games, including nine starts, one year after starting 13 of 14 games.

Fournette started his career with the Jacksonville Jaguars, who drafted him with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft out of LSU. On the whole, he has 4,478 rushing yards, 2,219 receiving yards and 41 total touchdowns across his six years in the league.

Report: Kyle Trask will compete for Buccaneers starting QB job in 2023

Former Florida Gators quarterback Kyle Trask will get an opportunity to start for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next season, according to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times.

That was the deal for any offensive coordinator who came in and replaced Byron Leftwich for the 2023 season, according to the report. The job went to Dave Canales, who’ll coach under Todd Bowles next year.

Trask and Blaine Gabbert are the only two quarterbacks on the current roster after Tom Brady retired for good. 

Canales, a former Seahawks assistant, was complimentary of Trask when he spoke to local media after accepting the job in Tampa.

“He was able to distribute and the thing we’re going to help Kyle continue to build on here is just be a point guard,” Canales said. “Point guards don’t have to be the ones that score all the points, you just distribute. Play on time, get the ball out of your hands, life’s better that way. You’ve got these bears chasing you, get rid of the ham and that’s the football. Just teaching him those principles, allowing him to be a distributor.”