Buccaneers Urged to Sign UFL MVP, Former Super Bowl Champion QB

There isn’t really a debate as to who the NFL’s signature team is headed into 2025 — it’s the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.

If the Tampa Bay Buccaneers truly think they can be contenders, then there’s one thing they could probably take away from the Eagles in terms of roster construction, and that’s at the quarterback position.

While both teams have elite starters at quarterback in reigning Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts and 2-time Pro Bowler Baker Mayfield, what the Eagles have the Buccaneers do not is incredible depth at the position.

Of the 3 Eagles backups currently on the roster, 2 of them have started and won NFL regular season games in Tanner McKee and Dorian Thompson-Robinson. The third backup, Kyle McCord, was a sixth round pick (No. 181 overall) in the 2025 NFL draft.

Mayfield’s backup, former second round pick Kyle Trask, has only played 4 games in mop-up duty over his first 4 NFL seasons with no starts. The Buccaneers’ other 2 backups, Michael Pratt and Connor Bazelak, have never taken an NFL snap.

All of that is to say the Buccaneers need to inject some more competition into their QB room — something they can do by signing UFL star Bryce Perkins.

Perkins, who won a Super Bowl as a backup with the Los Angeles Rams in 2021, was named UFL Most Valuable Player on June 13 after leading the Michigan Panthers to an appearance in the UFL Championship Game.

“Perkins missed three of the team’s 10 games due to injury, but that did not hurt his bid in the eyes of a panel of league and team executives, coaches and players from all eight teams, and media members,” Pro Football Talk’s Josh Alper wrote on June 13. “Perkins was also named the league’s offensive player of the year. Perkins completed 69 percent of his passes while throwing for 1,342 yards and nine touchdowns. The former Ram also ran for five touchdowns.”

Buccaneers Will Need to Make Corresponding Move

The Buccaneers would need to cut Bazelak or Pratt lose to bring Perkins in — they wouldn’t want to keep 5 quarterbacks on the roster. It’s a toss up as to who gets their walking papers.

Perkins, an Arizona native, started his college career at Arizona State and redshirted in 2015 before missing all oof 2016 after he fractured 2 vertebra in his neck at practice.

He spent 2017 at a junior college, Arizona Western, before playing his final 2 seasons at the University of Virginia, where he was an All-ACC pick in 2019 and led the Cavaliers to an appearance in the Orange Bowl. He went undrafted in 2020 and spent his first 3 NFL seasons with the Rams. Perkins was out of football in 2023 and has played in the UFL the last 2 seasons.

Trask Named One of NFL’s Worst Backup QBs

The Buccaneers brought Trask back for 2025 on a 1-year, $2.78 million contract.

Before the 2024 season, Bleacher Report’s Maurice Moton ranked Trask 30th out of all 32 backups, ahead of only Clayton Tune of the Arizona Cardinals and Stetson Bennett of the Rams.

“Most of the quarterbacks in the lowest tier have had rough career starts with poor performances,” Moton wrote, pointing out that Trask has “minimal regular season experience.”