John Spytek Details What He Helped Build In Tampa
May 22nd, 2025
Former Bucs assistant GM John Spytek.
There have been some articles published lately from people who seem to suggest that former Bucs assistant general manager John Spytek was the brains behind the Bucs’ building, arguably, one of the better drafting front offices in the NFL.
This made some wonder if the front office may collapse since Spytek got a gig working for Tom Brady, running the show in Las Vegas.
Spytek did a sitdown with Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team and while Meirov had a glowing introduction of Spytek and his work with the Bucs, Spytek made it clear he was one of a group who turned Tampa Bay around by largely building through the draft.
“It was a lot of hard work led by Jason Licht, and all of our scouts,” Spytek said. “When I got there in 2016, we won nine games, and then we hit a little bit of a rough patch, and we had to be pretty self-critical of the players that we were selecting and signing for agency and understand where we missed, and then have a plan to come off of that.”
That’s about the time, Licht has said, that he called his staff together and tried to find out where they were missing on players — and why they were hitting on some. In short, the Bucs wanted to revamp their entire eval process.
Spytek confirmed Licht’s approach.
“We just got to a point where we all put our heads together, and we wanted to know what we want a Buccaneer to look like,” Spytek said. “What do we want these players to be that we either pay a lot of money to in free agency, or we use high draft picks on?
“We kind of found that ‘I Am That Man’ moniker that we talked about all the time. And that was led by Jason. He said all the time, ‘We don’t miss on the player, we miss on the person.’ And so we really believed in that, and we made that kind of the central piece of our scouting process.
“We were going to commit to the person. We were going to almost demand that the person that we were selecting [had] a love of football, a person that [was] competitive as hell, that you almost had to, in a sense, kill them to get them off the field. … That became paramount.”
Spytek said it’s harder than it seems. It’s easy to see a tremendous athlete make plays.
“… More complicated to find the driven, competitive, high emotionally intelligent person,” Spytek said, adding the research he did on this with the Bucs shows those types of players usually last longer in the league.
(It sounded to Joe like Spytek was talking about Devin White, the former Bucs No. 5 overall pick who Spytek signed for the Raiders this offseason, his fourth team in three years.)
“When you find that person, I think [that is] when you start hitting home runs,” Spytek said.
Spytek then admitted he likely wouldn’t be where he is today without Licht.
“I give Jason so much credit for leading us through that [change in drafting process] and empowering myself and Rob McCartney, Mike Biehl and Mike Greenberg to kind of organically work with our scouts to develop a system where we all believed in it, because we worked on it together,” Spytek said. “Then we made it come to life.”
Joe’s biggest worry about Spytek leaving is that if he has a modicum of success with in Las Vegas, every damn team is going to start to rework their draft philosophies to mirror what Licht started.
It’s like the Athletics in baseball. They started the moneyball crap, had early success with it, and then nearly every team adopted it. It’s no longer novel (though fully annoying) — and the Athletics are no longer winning.
That could happen to the Bucs. All the decent players who are great people could get picked through like the best apples in a barrel before the Bucs can draft them.
May 22nd, 2025 at 4:01 am
Thought I was going crazy. Saw this posted earlier and then an error page. Glad to be able to read this now.
May 22nd, 2025 at 4:58 am
“Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery”. And you can bet teams all over the league are taking notice of what Licht is doing.
May 22nd, 2025 at 5:05 am
That will never happen. Most teams will always draft talent. Unless the prospect is so bad character wise, teams won’t pass on talent. Like Spytec said, it ain’t easy finding those guys.
May 22nd, 2025 at 5:46 am
I remember noticing (or maybe Jason Licht said so out loud?) around 2017 or 18 that they seemed to be drafting more guys who had been team captains. I bet this became a trait that they put on their new evaluation board.
May 22nd, 2025 at 6:26 am
What did they see in JTS? lol
May 22nd, 2025 at 6:26 am
It’s already started. All NFL draft so much better than they did even 5 years ago. You use to be able to count on the raiders to take some random guy just because he’s fast. Every pick is worth so much money it seems like all the teams put professionals in place. Gone are the days of the owners and coaches solely getting the chance to make ridiculously bad picks anymore. That being said I’m sure you are correct that all the good teams will raise the character bar too.
May 22nd, 2025 at 7:35 am
Huh, not drafting dawgs, only hard working nice guys. Sounds like we are destined for a bunch of 9 win seasons with 1st round exits. Figure Bowles is good for at least 5 “L’s” a year due to his atrocious game management and terrible defense
May 22nd, 2025 at 7:40 am
For every Brooks and Lynch, you also need a Sapp.
May 22nd, 2025 at 8:09 am
Sapp’s passion for the game never waned and don’t know what some people said to him in public that was inappropriate and then cried about his response. Not saying he was a darling by any means but we know how people can act. He may have made mistakes in his personal life that some take issue with but that’s his life to live. I’ve read some things about Brooks that are less than positive, and others. Unlike Devin White, Sapp was consistent in his play year in and year out.
May 22nd, 2025 at 9:01 am
It’s much easier to fall in love with highlights and hope the person is dedicated than it is to fall in love with a person’s dedication. That takes far more time to see and observe a person’s work ethic and devotion.
May 22nd, 2025 at 9:58 am
or the Braves locking up likely stars super early on far less expensive longterm deals of 8-plus years
May 22nd, 2025 at 10:03 am
Joe, Hindi published another article clarifying that Licht is the bona fide rock star GM, but that he enabled Spytek to develop and do lots of things. It was a good read.
May 22nd, 2025 at 10:08 am
“Hondo” auto correct
May 22nd, 2025 at 10:30 am
After the Swaggy Baker, Deshaun Jackson experiment we changed our whole mindset on players we bring in to one buc!
May 22nd, 2025 at 10:58 am
I have a sense that Spytek might’ve been a guy who could provide a counterpoint to Licht. He already had experience in the NFL before being hired by Licht. I wonder if guys like McCartney and Biehl are independent enough to be able to speak up and disagree with Licht when necessary since they’re basically homegrown. Groupthink isn’t great for any organization.
May 22nd, 2025 at 11:21 am
I think your fears are unwarranted, Joe.
Drafting guys that love football and aren’t pr1cks isn’t exactly a novel, groundbreaking theology. As others have said, that pendulum can swing too far where the team is loaded with quiet, humble nice guys that won’t push others to compete.
Let’s actually win a playoff game without mercenaries like Brady, Gronk, AB and Suh before we start talking about the entire league copying Licht’s draft strategy.
May 22nd, 2025 at 2:11 pm
Sapp may not have been a likeable guy off the field back then but he was never a locker room cancer, out drunk at 3AM groping Uber Drivers, and he realized he had to enjoy his MaryJane in private and not out in public.
Sapp was recently asked if he resented the big dollars todays DL earn and how MUCH he would have made in today’s market.
He gave incredibly mature answer. He pointed out Mean Joe Greene and others made a fraction of what he did and that’s just the nature of the beast.
Coming from a guy who had to file for bankruptcy impressed me a lot.
Sapp is a COMPLEX guy. Sometimes an arse, sometimes a decent dude. Prolly could say that about a lot of us.
ONE thing is certain however. He was a freaking monster on the field!!!