Former Bucs sideline reporter T.J. Rives with legendary former Bucs radio voice Gene Deckerhoff.

A lot of Bucs fans are wondering, now that the Bucs have played a couple of worthless preseason games, what happened to the team’s former sideline reporter T.J. Rives.

Well, Rives, who was a finalist for the Bucs’ radio play-by-play gig that eventually went to Tony Castricone in the wake of long-time Bucs voice Gene Deckerhoff retiring, surfaced this week to explain why he’s no longer with the Bucs.

Simply put, Rives is puzzled why he did not get to succeed Deckerhoff but he left the Bucs because, he thought, it was the proper thing to do for all parties.

And, Rives said, he wanted to keep his options open in case another play-by-play job opened up, whether that is an NFL gig or college football.

Rives is adamant he left the Bucs without any rancor, but discussing not getting Deckerhoff’s job, Rives did come across as a bit frustrated.

After all, Rives put in years working in a secondary role as a sideline reporter with the Bucs in hopes of someday being the Bucs’ radio voice.

So why speak now (he appeared on the “J.P. Peterson Show” this week) when he had months to talk, Rives was asked by Peterson.

“There needs to be awareness that I am not there. … And the why,” Rives said.

Rives said fans still ask him if he was still working Bucs radio broadcasts and why he didn’t get Deckerhoff’s job. This, he said, motivated him to come out of the shadows.

“I could sit here for an hour and tell you the entire truth,” Rives said. “I don’t need to tell you the entire truth because you are going to get the truth out of the picture that I tell.

“Just know there is a full truth that doesn’t have to be aired out publicly.”

Rives noted he worked with the Bucs for some 20 years because he knew, at some point, Gene Deckerhoff would retire. At age 80 last season, Deckerhoff finally packed up his headset.

So Rives very much had Deckerhoff’s seat circled for many years. Rives stated he could have been an NFL play-by-play man 15 years ago. But he coveted Deckerhoff’s seat and wanted to work in his hometown and passed on the opportunity.

Rives added as recently as just a couple of years ago he had chances to work elsewhere. He had no interest because Tampa is his home and he wanted Deckerhoff’s job. And he loved his job with the Bucs.

“There was no formal agreement,” Rives said, that he was promised the gig or that he was told he was the first in the line of succession for Deckerhoff’s job. (Rives didn’t mention anything about an informal agreement, either.)

But Rives added it is “fantasyland” if the Bucs ever suggest they didn’t know he wanted to replace Deckerhoff.

“Obviously I wanted the job,” Rives said.

Rives said Deckerhoff had told his colleagues with the Bucs, which included Rives, on the road trip to Miami last season, he was throwing in the towel on his spectacular career once the Bucs’ season ended.

Rives waited for the Bucs to interview him. February came and went. And then into March. Rives said the Bucs told him twice, “Sit tight,” that the interview process was about to start.

“The more truth I tell, the worse it gets,” Rives said. “As March becomes April, and now [the Bucs] have hired a consultant and I am told, ‘You need to talk to the consultant.’ In another market. Who has no idea who I am.

“And I’m on the phone with the consultant who three minutes into this says, ‘You are the ideal type candidate they are looking for.’ No kidding.”

Rives suggested that after speaking to the consultant the Bucs had hired to find Deckerhoff’s replacement, it seemed like a dead end.

“I really believe, and I guess this is wrong and this is naïve, I really believed once I and the others had talked to the consultant, the process would escalate at that point. And then they would look to make the hire.

“That did not happen in April.”

As the process dragged into May and Rives learned the Bucs were holding auditions — which did not include him — Rives said he had family members tell him if he wasn’t involved in the auditions, “This is not good. You gotta find something else.”

Rives said when he returned from a family cruise in mid-June, he learned Castricone had been hired.

Now Joe has to be fair to both Rives and the Bucs here. Why would Rives need to audition? And why would the Bucs have him audition? The Bucs have tape of him calling real Bucs games live, working alongside Dave Moore, in a live game, a live broadcast. From time to time, Deckerhoff, either due to illness or because of travel logistics and/or travel conflicts, couldn’t make it, or was late.

Sometimes, with maybe just a couple of hours’ warning, Rives had to pinch hit for Deckerhoff. That’s not easy. So the audition speed bump doesn’t make sense to Joe, both for Rives and for the Bucs.

Rives did say the Bucs invited him to keep his old job as sideline reporter. Rives said he chose not to remain with the Bucs, not out of spite or any ill will or anger or hostility, but that he wants to do play-by-play. If that means for another team, then that means he’s got to find a job outside the market.

Rives made it clear the Bucs did not fire him, nor was he pushed out the door. The decision to leave was his alone.

“It needed to be a clean break.”

Rives was also very direct in that he has zero hard feelings for Castricone, whom he said he has never met nor spoken with. Rives wants Castricone to be the best he can be for the Bucs and Bucs fans.

Rives also suggested it likely wouldn’t be fair to Castricone if he stuck around.

Rives said he’s been humbled by the supportive feedback from “hundreds” of Bucs fans he’s received since the Bucs made their choice.

“I can’t respond individually to everyone,” Rives said.

Peterson tried to get Rives to speak freely about the Bucs with some inside stories that he knows. Rives wouldn’t take the bait because, he said, if the feedback was positive, people would dismiss it as Rives trying to kiss up to the Bucs to get a job. Or, if Rives’ stories were viewed as negative, people would dismiss him as having an ax to grind and having sour grapes.

As far as what the Bucs were exactly looking for in Deckerhoff’s successor is unclear and may never be clear. It seems the Bucs wanted to hire someone full-time and not be a contracted worker, as Deckerhoff was.

If that’s the case, a potential hang-up may have been that Rives runs his own freelance broadcasting business where he has his hand in a lot of things, including play-by-play of college football, college basketball and boxing as well as various podcasts. Rives also hosts the Big XII’s in-house Saturday morning football pregame show.

If the following helps clear things up for fans, so be it: Roughly three or four days prior to the Bucs announcing that Castricone would succeed Deckerhoff, Joe received a text from an acquaintance who is a solid source and is one of the top national sports media writers in the business. This source told Joe that the Bucs were down to Castricone and Rives and it is a toss-up.

At the time, Joe couldn’t get anyone to go on the record to confirm this intel. And since Joe was out of town at the time, he didn’t feel right just running with an unsourced tip.

Again, this tip did not come from the Bucs but from someone, if Joe typed his name, many readers would recognize. He’s as plugged in with sports media sources as there is (he told Joe as recently as last summer he can get a sitdown with ESPN shot-caller Burke Magnus any time he wants).

So it appears, at least from the intel that Joe had earlier this year, that not getting an audition was not some dealbreaker for Rives.

The Bucs are currently trying out a pair of candidates for Rives’ old job as Bucs sideline reporter. Both have worked the Bucs’ sidelines this summer during Buccaneers Radio Network preseason game broadcasts.

Former WDAE-AM 620 host and current local podcaster Jay Recher is one candidate. The other is former Tampa Bay Times multimedia producer and former Tampa Bay Lightning reporter Rachel West.

Joe’s guessing one of the two will begin work Week 1 at Cincinnati.