Jason Licht Talks “Roster-Building” Changes
February 27th, 2026
Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht is the fifth-longest tenured general manager in the National Football League.
It’s no surprisde that those in that top-5 club have all won Super Bowls and several division titles.
Licht is not the same guy who was hired in 2014 and presided over the second half of The Lost Decade.
During a visit to CBS Sports, Licht was asked by former Titans GM Ran Carthon (also a former Gators and NFL running back) how his roster-building has changed since Lovie Smith and Team Glazer brought him to Tampa.
“We all evolve,” Licht said. “And when you have the opportunity to stay on — and I’m grateful that I was, there’s plenty of times I wasn’t sure I was going to make it — I think you start to realize that you need to mitigate risk a little bit more and more with these players, and make sure that everybody [in the organization] is on the same page and everybody likes [the player].
“You don’t realize, ‘Just because I like the player as the GM, but everybody else is telling me this guy can’t play but I’m going to prove to them’ — it’s not going to work. I need to rely on everybody. I need to rely on the coaches. I need to rely on the scouts, obviously, who do a fantastic job for us. So, I think just making it more of a collective decision [on players] has worked well for us.”
That’s a candid take from a seasoned general manager. Joe is unaware of changes to Licht’s staff after last season, though Joe is aware of many on the coaching side of the building.
Joe is confident that’s not a coincidence.