Up to the Trask: Bucs GM confident about potential new starting QB

Licht expressed his comfort with starting Kyle Trask next season. The Bucs selected Trask with the final pick of the second round (64th overall) in 2021.

The team must replace Tom Brady, who retired on Feb. 1, unless Licht plans on wooing Brady by standing outside his house with a boombox blasting Peter Gabriel.

Trask played collegiately at Florida and finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting after the 2020 season. That year, he went 301-of-437 (68.9 percent) for 4,283 yards, 43 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

It can't be ignored that the 2020 season was an outlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to several players opting out and an overall disjointed season.

He completed 66.9 percent of his passes in 2019 and showed flashes of the player he would become the following year, but it's difficult to know how much of his improvement was due to the unprecedented circumstances of the 2020 season and how much was due to his own evolution.

Trask has played 10 snaps for the Bucs since being drafted, in Week 18 against the Falcons this past season. He went 3-of-9 for 23 yards in the fourth quarter of a 30-17 loss.

Starting Trask in 2023 could be a win-win for the Bucs. 

If Trask fulfills his promise, the Bucs will look like geniuses. If he doesn't, the team will likely find itself near the bottom of the standings next season, possibly in a position to draft Caleb Williams.

Either way, Tampa Bay needs to find out what it has in a player it drafted in the second round. He could be the future or the one to accelerate its arrival.