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Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles appeared to confirm multiple reports that Tampa Bay has signed Carl Nassib, a free agent defensive end who is the NFL’s first openly gay active player.
“We’re excited for him to come here,” Bowles said said from Nassib to reporters Tuesday.
Nassib previously played for the Buccaneers in 2018 and 2019. He then signed with the Las Vegas Raiders as a free agency and was a member of that organization in June 2021 when he made history with his outing.
“I’m quite a private person,” Nassib said in a video he shared online at the time, “so I hope you guys know I’m really not doing this to attract attention. I just think representation and visibility are so important.”
Several NFL players welcomed him at the time, as did a number of league officials and advocates for LGBTQ issues. In a message to Nassib and Kumi Yokoyama, a National Women’s Soccer League player who came out as a transgender man, President Biden said wrote: “I am so proud of your courage. Thanks to you, countless children around the world now see themselves in a new light.”
Another defensive end, Michael Sam, had blazed a trail by coming out ahead of the 2014 NFL draft. He was subsequently selected in the seventh round by the St. Louis Rams but was released before the start of the season and never played a regular-season snap in the NFL. Sam then became the first openly gay player in the Canadian Football League when he took the field for the Montreal Alouettes in August 2015.
Nassib said earlier this summer that he had some concerns about taking the step to share his video last year.
“I was staring at the phone for about an hour trying to get upset,” the 29-year-old Pennsylvania native told Good Morning America correspondent Michael Strahan, a former NFL star, in July. “The last thing I said was, ‘You know what — for the kids.’ And I pressed mail.”
Nassib added that after coming out to his friends and family years ago, he decided last year to go public with it to “own the story and make sure I do it on my terms.”
When Nassib made those comments last month, he had been fired from the Raiders after a two-year stint that coincided with a turbulent time for Las Vegas. Head coach Jon Gruden resigned in October 2021 after emails he had sent containing racist, misogynistic and homophobic language were revealed.
After the Gruden scandal, Nassib was taken off team activities to take a personal day.
“He just said he had a lot to work through,” then general manager Mike Mayock said of Nassib at the time. “A lot has happened in the last few days. And of course we support that.”
Gruden was replaced by Rich Bisaccia on an interim basis before Josh McDaniels was hired as the team’s new head coach in January. At the same time, the Raiders brought on board a new general manager, Dave Ziegler, after firing Mayock earlier in the month.
Now Nassib will reunite with general manager Jason Licht, who has held the position for the Buccaneers since 2014, and Bowles, who was the team’s defensive coordinator for three years before replacing former head coach Bruce Arians in March.
After beginning his NFL journey with the Cleveland Browns, where he spent two seasons, Nassib enjoyed some of his most productive moments with the Buccaneers. Of his 22 career sacks, 12.5 came in a Tampa Bay uniform, as did 25 of his 53 quarterback hits.
Bowles praised Nassib on Tuesday as a robust running defender who can also be used in different ways in the coach’s scheme.
“He’s a very good pass rusher on the outside, and he can also play inside in some nickel situations,” Bowles told reporters. “He’s very versatile, he brings a lot of energy, brings a lot of tenacity and he understands the system. He felt good about it [in his previous stint].”