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2014 NFL Draft: Buccaneers are unlikely to pick a quarterback

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers may want a quarterback, but they're rapidly losing sight of the options.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers aren't likely to select a quarterback in the first round of the draft next year. Not because they won't want to, because Mike Glennon certainly hasn't looked that good the past couple of games, but because they're unlikely to have the draft pick necessary to select a franchise passer. With a 4-9 record and the ninth pick in the draft currently, they're certainly very far removed from a quarterback. Football Outsiders gives the Bucs just a 4.6% chance to get a top three pick, and no chance of earning the number one pick.

The remaining schedule might help, though. The Bucs have three games remaining, and it wouldn't be surprising to see them end the season with three straight losses against the 49ers, Rams and Saints (the last two on the road). If that happens and the Bucs finish the season with a 4-12 record, it's still hard to see them picking higher than fifth. They'll lose any and all tiebreakers because of their uniquely difficult strength of schedule, and the bottom 4-12 teams have tended to pick around fifth or sixth in the draft. This season seems to be heading in a similar direction.

And with that, chances of selecting a franchise quarterback are dropping rapidly. The draft should have four or five quarterbacks possibly worth selecting high in the draft, but if the Bucs are to be in position to draft one, that would almost certainly be the least of them. Of the top 10 picks in the draft as they stand right now, the Bills and Falcons are the only ones who won't be looking for a new signal caller, which means that almost every team ahead of the Bucs will pick a quarterback.

That would leave a move up as a possibility to get the top quarterback they would want. The most likely target for a trade up would be Atlanta, but the Bucs don't have the ammunition in draft picks to make a winning offer even without the division rival angle. Any team holding a top pick and willing to trade down in a quarterback-heavy draft is going to play rival teams against each other, leading to huge prices to be paid. Perhaps the Bucs really would be willing to sell out and give up three first-rounders or the like for a quarterback, but that seems unlikely.

So if a quarterback does fall to them, that will not be the top quarterback on the board. It won't be the second-best quarterback on the board. It probably won't even be third-best quarterback on the board, and whether he's the fourth-best quarterback is an open question. The fourth quarterback on the board may very well be good enough to select that high, particularly if Brett Hundley and Blake Bortles both decide to come out, but it certainly lowers the odds.

There's also the question of how well Glennon plays and whether the Bucs will even want to select a new quarterback this offseason. That question more than likely will answer itself: if Glennon plays well, the Buccaneers are likely to win at least one and maybe two more games. If they do that, they're not going to be in position to pick a quarterback, and the question becomes moot. If they lose the next three games, though, Glennon is likely to have played poorly, a new regime is likely to be installed, and the Bucs are likely looking for a new signal caller.

Even in that scenario they may find that they can't find anyone worthy of overtaking Glennon's starting job, however.