<
>

Lovie Smith: Bucs not shopping Vincent Jackson

TAMPA, Fla. -- The rumor mill has had the Tampa Bay Buccaneers interested in trading for Percy Harvin and listening to trade offers for Vincent Jackson in recent days.

Harvin ended up being traded to the New York Jets. Jackson still is a member of the Buccaneers. Coach Lovie Smith said Monday that fans shouldn’t buy too much into rumors.

“Just kind of one blanket statement, as I’ve said to you, we’re always trying to improve our ballclub,’’ Smith said. “Teams in the NFL talk each week pretty much. You’re always talking about different guys. If there is a player that’s available, we look at him. Was there a player that was available? No. We’re not looking at players from some other football team.’’

So Smith shot down the Harvin rumor. But what about the report that said the Bucs are getting a lot of calls about Jackson?

“I wouldn’t put too much into what sources said, unless they said ‘I talked with (general manager) Jason (Licht),’ or ‘I talked with Lovie, and they said this.’ I haven’t been looking at a whole lot of news. I didn’t see that. We like our football team that we’re going with and have here right now. We’re not trying to shop any players to answer any questions out there. And if people call about some of their players, we take all calls. We don’t say ‘Nope, this area code, we’re not going to take this call.’ We don’t do that. We listen to what everyone has to say and we go from there. You saw who was on our roster today, and I would just kind of go with that.”