It was possible to talk yourself into Howard last year, despite HC Bruce Arians’ shaky history of TE production. But it sure didn’t pan out. Even Arians struggled to explain why: “It’s hard to say (what’s wrong). He’s a talented, talented guy, but it’s not showing up on Sundays.”

Despite persistent rumors, the Buccaneers have fought off any urge to trade Howard and did pick up the 2021 option on his rookie deal. So they clearly don’t hate him. But they also imported Rob Gronkowski this offseason to pair with new QB Tom Brady.

We’ll have to see what that means for Howard’s playing time. Arians has called the 2-TE approach his “base” offense, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be Tampa’s most frequent alignment. The Bucs ran “12” personnel -- 1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs, the most common multiple-TE set -- on 23% of offensive plays last season, and that ranked 8th highest in the league. Overall, they ran multiple TEs on just 27% of offensive plays.

At the same time, Arians also said he’d “like to see us use some more four wide receiver sets, if those guys show up.” And he said he’s been “huge” on 12-personnel since his days as Pittsburgh OC (2007-11).

His teams since then haven’t generally found more than 40% playing time for multiple TEs, though. Last year’s Bucs got Cameron Brate on the field just 37.9% of the time as Tampa’s #2 TE. Before that, just 2 of Arians’ 5 Cardinals teams had a 2nd TE reach 40% playing time. And his 2012 Colts got Fleener on the field 38.6% of the time.

Perhaps Howard -- who played a career-high 79.7% of the snaps over his 14 games last season -- rebounds from last year’s performance and remains the snap leader among Bucs TEs. He certainly has displayed the receiving and blocking ability to do so. But Gronk also poses a much bigger challenge to that than Brate, and brings a longer record of performance and production as both a receiver and a blocker.

Draft Sharks B…