TAMPA, Fla. — The expectation when you draft a quarterback in the second round is that he will eventually take the reins of your team. However, Kyle Trask was not even the immediate backup in Tampa during his 2021 rookie campaign.
The only time we saw Trask on the field with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was during the preseason when he threw for 312 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions over three games.
Trask's road to the NFL comes as a backup for most of his career.
In high school, he sat behind D'Eriq King at Manvel High School in Texas. At the University of Florida, it took an injury to Feleipe Franks for Trask to finally claim the starting job.
"Know once I was a starter at Florida, there's it's one thing to, you know, finally be the starter, but it's another thing to stay there," Trask said about his time before the Bucs.
The team liked what they saw out of Trask early on with Tom Brady saying, "Yeah Kyle's done a great job from the day that he got here. He's a very hard worker."
The benefits to Trask come in his rookie contract that is already on the books for the Bucs. Trask is set to make a base salary of $911,606 in 2022.
Without adding a quarterback from outside the building, they can allocate those funds elsewhere to build around the second-year quarterback.