Buccaneers Salary Cap Update After First Week of Free Agency

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers did well to retain their own players and shore up some depth — here's how they look on cap space heading into the NFL Draft.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been big spenders in free agency, mostly to retain their own players. The team has also added a few new ones, to shore up depth, too, and its beginning to show at the moment when it comes to the team's salary cap. 

The Bucs did well to bring back quarterback Baker Mayfield, wide receiver Mike Evans, safety Antoine Winfield Jr. (on the franchise tag, at least) and linebacker Lavonte David. Tampa Bay also shored up depth, addressing the interior offensive line by bringing in guards Ben Bredeson and Sua Opeta and looking at cornerback by signing former Jets cornerback Bryce Hall.

As it stands, these additions have the Bucs with very little cap space. Spotrac currently has Tampa Bay with the 28th-most salary cap space in the league at $9,978,974. Only the Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons and Dallas Cowboys have less cap space.

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Wide receiver Mike Evans recently restructured his new contract by converting his $21.79 million roster bonus into a signing bonus, which in theory frees up $17.43 million cap space — however, as FOX Sports' Greg Auman pointed out, this was how the contract would have best been structured for salary cap purposes regardless and thus no new cap space has been created.

This is correct, though the new version of the Evans contract is what always made sense from a cap standpoint. Original was framed for non-cap accounting purposes, just in terms of whether money was paid out in 2023 league year vs. 2024. https://t.co/DrRDDuhVu4

— Greg Auman (@gregauman) March 17, 2024

There are a few things the Bucs can do to get some more cap space. An extension of a player typically involves converting salary to a signing bonus distributed over the length of a contract, which can free up space — as a result, extensions to players like Tristan Wirfs and an actual deal with Winfield Jr. could make this happen. 

Nevertheless, Bucs fans can trust general manager Jason Licht and cap wiz Mike Greenberg to get Tampa Bay where it needs to be cap-space-wise. Seeing as how the Bucs recently hosted corner Tavierre Thomas on a visit, the team doesn't seem to be done adding new players.

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You can follow River Wells on Twitter @riverhwells.

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