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With Josh Freeman off the roster, Pewter Report claims that the Buccaneers could bring in a third quarterback and they speculate that a trade for Ryan Mallett or Pat Devlin could be in the cards. That contradicts Rick Stroud, who told NFL Network did not expect the Buccaneers to add a third quarterback, barring injury of course.
Adding a third quarterback in the middle of a season tends to not work, mostly because there's no time to teach that third quarterback your offensive system. Once you start pulling quarterbacks off the street, you're pretty desperate anyway. Adding a quarterback at this point means taking a roster probably better spent on a safety or tight end. A quarterback addition to the practice squad might make more sense.
One thing that wouldn't make sense would be trading for Ryan Mallett or Pat Devlin, though. To start with, trading for other people's backups does not work. The list of failed trades is extensive and includes Kevin Kolb, Donovan McNabb (Redskins and Vikings periods), Matt Cassel and Charlie Whitehurst over the past five years. Meanwhile, the list of successful trades is mostly limited to Matt Schaub and Matt Hasselbeck -- and that's going back over a decade.
Plus, it's not like there's much reason to believe that Ryan Mallett now is actually good. The same, of course, is true for every other backup quarterback in the league, who tend to be backups for a reason. Getting a good evaluation on them as they're learning a new system isn't going to work, either. Instead, they'll want to evaluate Mike Glennon -- and he needs to start every remaining game for that to happen effectively.
The Bucs cannot afford to give up future draft picks for relief this season, and bringing in a quarterback mid-season tends to be a bad idea. If they must bring someone in, the Bucs should sign them off the street, not get them in trade.