Free Agency Signings & Breaking Down Cap Space | Bucs Insider

was announcing the good news Shack Barrett is back. Uh So at first, I just wanted to get your reaction that while we give people chance to submit their questions underneath the Facebook Live video they have for us, we now know that that Shack is back, which is so exciting. And tell me your thoughts on how they were able to get this done well. It helped to have both sides being very very motivated. Um, Shack actually made that

clear all along. He made the clear as recently as far back as last year before we got the franchise tag. He was very motivated to be here. So they just had to get the numbers right and they found a way to do that, which hasn't been easy this year. You know, the all the efforts to bring all these guys back, which are still ongoing and involve a lot of working around a tough salary cap situation because the salary cap went down this year, which nobody anticipated a

year ago. So um, it helps. I think that he really really wanted to come back here, and he stressed that again. He said there's nowhere else he really wanted to be. He was really focused on coming back here. And uh. He also said one thing that I liked is he says he feels like he can play a lot better than he did last year, and he was really good last year. He says his issue is he

needs to be a dominant player game to game. He needs more consistency and and you know, I mean, I know as Sax went down from nineteen point five, which is incredible to eight, but he was still third in the league in quarterback pressures and you know you saw him in the Super Bowl. He was all over the place. So um, if you can get more of that almost every game from Shack Barrett, and this is going to be a contract that is well well worth it. Absolutely.

And also since our last show, we had last show been able to talk about some rumors about Lavonte David, but he had not officially signed, so we hadn't gotten to really dive into that last week. Uh take us through similar things of his resigning, what they really to do there with his contract and what him coming back beats well. I love it. I mean, you could argue and argue and it'd be a fun argument about which was the most important player for the Buccaneers to get back.

Was that Chris Godden was a check bet was Levante David And reasonable minds can disagree, But I can tell you from the from the satisfaction standpoint of us being able to bring one of those guys back, I don't think it was gonna get any higher than Levante David, just because he has now established himself as one of the greatest players and also one of the most well respected players in the history of this franchise. I noted when we signed him that now, since he's played nine seasons,

he's gonna go. He's gonna finish at least a decade with the Buccaneers, and he'll on maybe the fourteenth guy to do that. I mean, that makes him one of the pillars of this team up there with the likes of the Derek Brooks's and John Lynch's and the Warren SAPs and Rodney Barber's and all that. He's sort of

the new generation of that. You know, ten fifteen years from now, we'll be looking at him the way we look at say, Randee Barber, Derek Brooks, and um, I think he's got a lot of good years left in him and I'm just I'm absolutely thrilled that he's coming back. Yeah. Absolutely, And uh, Mitchell had asked where are we at on cap space? That is the big question of this whole time of year, and it has been fascinating this year.

We mentioned earlier about how the cap shrunk and that's not something that typically happens, and how when you're planning all these contracts you don't originally think that's going to happen. So take us through some of things that the front office has done to make sure you're able to bring back as many of these guys as possible under the

cap and where we stand at this point. Yeah, As you know, the Bucks don't really ever publicly talk about the dollars in a contract or where they are in the cap, but there are plenty of sources online like over the cap dot com or spot track where you can get a good idea of where every team stands in cap space, and I happen to be looking at one of those earlier today and they're probably, if not accurate, pretty close to it. And they had us right now

at nine point six million remaining under the cap. But it's really not You shouldn't key in too much on that number, because if the Bucks need to create more cap space, they will find a way to do it if they have, you know, a good deal in place for one of the players that they want to bring back, and so you know, there are ways to do that, and we've seen that, and really that's sort of been the story of this free agency period and lead up

to it for the Buccaneers this year. Uh you know, I think most Pew fans know by now that for about a decade now, the Bucks have been really focusing on what you might call pay as you go contracts, where it's almost all salary and so the cap hit is very uniform across the contract, and if you have gotten past guaranteed money, it's easy to get out of it without hurting yourself on the cap. So it retains

a lot of flexibility. But Jason light set in February that you do that so that when you get to a point where you think you can win multiple championships, you can then get more creative with your contracts to try to keep the gang together. And Shack was saying today that after he won his Super Bowl in Denver that they weren't able to do that. They couldn't bring back some free agents. They had to cut some guys.

The Buccaneers are now employing some of these other strategies like backloading contracts in avoidable years and signing bonuses that spread out the cap hit over the course of the contract in order to make these contracts have a lower cap hit right now, so that keep all of these guys, and that means you'll have to deal with it in the future, but teams do that all the time, and everybody expects the salary cap to go up in the years to come, especially when the new broadcast deals are signed,

it could go up a lot. So it really is a good strategy for the Bucks to do right now, and they're doing it in order to try to keep this core intact. Okay, and uh Francisco asked, do you think we will get a quarterback in the draft, and If so, who would you go for. Well, here's what I would say about the Bucks and a quarterback, and it's kind of similar to what they said last year. I don't think the Buckners are going to go into this draft with the notion that we have to come

out of this with a quarterback. And I certainly don't think they're going to use their first round pick, which is, you know, so late it probably wouldn't work anyway to take what they think as the quarterback in the future after Tom Brady. I think it's a matter of the opportunity. If the pick and the player uh line up well, you know, third round, fourth round, fifth round, whatever, then

they do it. And and there's probably the fact that this team is so loaded and then we're getting a lot of these guys back actually helps with that because, as Jason light said, if you go into that draft without really glaring needs anywhere on the depth chart, you can make some luxury picks, and maybe a luxury pick is a quarterback that you could you could try to

develop over the next couple of years. But with Tom Brady signed at least through UM, this guy, anybody that we bring in isn't going to start for a couple of years, yeah, which could always be nice that developmental guide.

And related to that, Charles had asked what you think about the QB situation overall, including guys like Gabert and Griffin, if there was a quarterback in the draft of potential free agent any of those options of what you think this room could look like next year and how similar

will look to how the room looked last year. I think that um, Bruce Arians would prefer at this point where the Bucks are right now with Tom Brady and committed to him for at least two more seasons, what they would probably like to have right behind him is an experience veteran like they've had with Blaine Gabbert. Blame was hurt two years ago, but last year he was your your main backup the entire season. Didn't end up needing him really that he played the second half in

Detroit because we were blowing them away. But um, I think that Bruce Arians has trusted him. He's played in his system, and he's won games as a starter for him, So to me, that would seem like plan A. Of course, he's an unrestricted free agent right now, so we'll see. But I tend to think even if you bring on a rookie, they're gonna want to veteran behind Tom Brady and then they're one gonna want to hope they never

have to use them. Okay, And Richard said, what do you think is the higher draft priority running back, d line or edge rush rotation. Well, it became less of a priority at edge rush now that we resigned Shack Barrett. But I think you always can add guys at that position, um, just to get depth into to plan for the future. So I could still see us taking an edge guy at thirty two if there's one we really like there. Um. I don't think running back is necessarily a huge need,

but again that could be a luxury pick. If you love say Travis et n and he's there at thirty two, um, and you don't really have a glaring need you have to dress, you could do that. But of those three he mentioned, I would think defensive line has to be the answer at the moment because you have three players right now who are still unrestricted for agents. Hope we can get some are all of them back, But that's

in Dominican Sue and Nacho and Steve McClendon. So just simply by the numbers, that seems like the biggest need um we have, of course, a few different questions about the upcoming um potential free agencies are still unsigned, of how many guys those are left, you know, kind of give us an update on who is is still left to either be signed or to be losing in free agency,

and what you think some of those next moves could be. Yeah, we've seen some rumors that that give us a little bit of confidence we're gonna get some more of those guys back. But I think the key ones right now are in Dominican Sue. Obviously Rob Gronkowski, the kicker. I think we tend to forget that Ryan suck Up had such an amazing year, and when you're talking about your Chris Godwin's and your Lavante David, you you don't immediately think of the kicker. But Ryan Suckup was great last

year and he's a free agent. Um Antonio Brown, uh, the the defensive lignement that I mentioned in addition to in Dominan Sue. Those and then of course, like we were just talking about both of our backup quarterbacks playing Gabbett and Ryan Griffin. So there's still could be a lot of work to do, and there still could be some significant losses, but I think we're off to a start and I've got some confidence we'll get a couple

more guys back. All right, Well, that is going to do it for us on Buccaneers Inside our Live presented by Miller Lite. Thinks there's always for those amazing questions and we'll see you next week. M h.