Football coaches are usually pretty consistent when they comment on players who don’t show up for training camp. They worry about the guys who are there to work and practice.
That was the opinion of Tampa Bay Buccaneers Todd Bowles about edge rusher Randy Gregory, who reached an agreement with the team to be released this week. Gregory never reported to training camp or attended mandatory minicamp workouts after filing a discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and the Denver Broncos.
If that’s the reason Gregory never reported, it doesn’t matter to Bowles, because he was never told whether the linebacker’s absence was a result of his lawsuit.
“I’ll never know, but I wish him the best and we’ll go from there,” Bowles told ESPN’s Jenna Laine. “You can’t miss what you never had.”
Bowles then explained that the team has ample depth at the outside linebacker position, including players who could still make the team, and so should be fine without Gregory.
Bucs coach Todd Bowles on the pass rush: “That’s the only good thing that came out of the defense. There was obviously a lot of missed tackles in the run game. I’m not happy with that. Not happy with third down, but we had 5.0 sacks. Doesn’t count in the loss, but the young guys…
— JennaLaineESPN (@JennaLaineESPN) August 18, 2024
Gregory, 32, signed a one-year contract with the Buccaneers as a free agent in April. He played 12 games for the San Francisco 49ers last season after being traded by the Broncos. He totaled 3 1/2 sacks and 20 tackles, six tackles for loss and 10 quarterback hits.
Tampa Bay hoped Gregory could bolster the pass rush, which totaled 48 sacks last season, ninth among NFL teams. (Yaya Diaby led the team with 7 1/2 sacks.) The defense lost linebacker Shaquil Barrett, who was released due to a pay cut and had 4 1/2 sacks in 2023. (Barrett ultimately retired before starting training camp with the Miami Dolphins this summer.)
In the lawsuit, Gregory alleged discrimination in that he was not allowed to continue taking medications containing THC to treat social anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Players who test positive for THC are no longer suspended by the league, but can still be fined because it is still on the NFL’s banned substances list.
In total, Gregory missed 24 days of training camp and three mandatory offseason workouts and was fined nearly $1.4 million for those absences. The Buccaneers could also get back a percentage of his signing bonus, ESPN reported.
