Buccaneers beat out seventeen teams for Brent Grimes

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed Brent Grimes in free agency, but the question is whether or not he’ll be able to play at the level he used to reach: a Pro Bowl level. Grimes showed some signs of decline last year, although he was still very good, and his game has always been based on outstanding athletic ability, and he’ll have to compensate for declining ability with anticipation and smarts. That goes a long way, but there’s a limit to how far you can take that approach.

It seems that the rest of the NFL doesn’t mind too much, though. Apparently, seventeen teams called to inquire about his services after he hit free agency. That’s what his wife Miko Grimes said on ESPN radio, in an interview that JoeBucsFan transcribed. Not just that, but Grimes also said that the Miami Dolphins tried to match the Bucs’ offer, and her husband just didn’t want to go back to Miami — a claim she’s made repeatedly.

This isn’t particularly new, but Miko Grimes is always surprisingly candid, which gives us a view of the inner workings of the NFL we usually don’t get. In this case, the fact that the Bucs beat out a bunch of teams for Grimes’ services. The fact that the team is in roughly the same area of the country, and that he would be reunited with Mike Smith probably helped a bunch. But at least the Bucs are sometimes competitive in the free agency market — not something that is to be take for granted, given how many free agents the Bucs have pursued who have signed elsewhere over the past two years.