Bucs’ 2023 Cap Situation Is Bad But Not Dire

The Bucs currently sit atop the NFC South Division controlling their own fate with regards to an opportunity to secure the #5 seed in the playoffs. And yet, if the questions I have recently found in my DM’s are to be believed many of the team’s fans have already turned to one of their favorite December past times: looking to next season.

I don’t blame them. The product on the field over the course of the 2022 season has been anything but playoff caliber. The most likely scenario at this point in time is that the Bucs win the NFC South only to be bounced from the playoffs in the Wild Card round by a Dallas Cowboys team that has shown itself to be far superior to Tampa Bay.

This has left many fans considering what next year’s version of the Bucs might look like. And after three years of personnel moves that have been designed to help the team go “all in,” it is fair to wonder how far “out” that might leave the team in 2023 and beyond. Well look no further, because I am going to take you through ins, the outs, the ups and the downs of the Bucs’ salary cap situation next year.

The Bucs Currently Projected To Be Over The Cap in 2023

A bit of this exercise has to be done under one large assumption. That assumption is what the NFL salary cap will be in 2023. It currently isn’t set and won’t be until after the conclusion of the 2022 season. However, it can be projected with reasonable certainty. The cap is calculated based off of league revenue.

The business of the NFL has been very good recently as with the contract renewals with many of the broadcasting network partners they have as well as the new deal with Amazon. This has left websites dedicated to the salary cap like overthecap.com to project the salary cap to raise from this year’s number of $208,200,000 to approximately $225,000,000. That will help the Bucs manage their ever-expanding contractual obligations.

However, even with that expansion of cap limits the team currently has just under $268,000,000 in cap charges on the books for 2023. Since the current collective bargaining agreement does not allow for a team to carry a salary cap that is even one penny over the limit, the team will have to make moves to reduce their $39+ million overage and become cap compliant.

Bucs Could Make Dead Money Come Back To Life

Part of the reason the Bucs are currently facing the second-largest salary cap total is due to contracts they wrote to allow them to sign marquee players without taking large cap charges in 2021 and 2022. Think of this as signing players on credit or putting a down payment on a car. You get to use the goods you are purchasing now (get the player under contract in 2022) but you agree to make the full payment for that player later (in 2023). As the saying goes “The bill always comes due.”

Tampa Bay currently has six players who will count against the team’s 2023 salary cap despite not being under contract. Tom Brady, Julio Jones, Will Gholston, Akiem Hicks, Lavonte David, and Jaelon Darden will combine to cost $53,067,341 of dead cap charges. That is almost a full quarter of the team’s salary cap being spent on six players that might no longer be on the roster in 2023.

Darden’s case is a bit special. He could have been under contract entering his third year of a four-year rookie contract. But when the Bucs cut him last week they were forced to take on a dead cap charge in 2023 of the remainder of his prorated signing bonus. It amounts to just $348,950. But the other five players were all signed with the intent of creating these dead cap charges in 2023 and they all will cost in the millions.

For some of these players the Bucs could attempt to re-sign them, and depending on the contract, defer the dead cap penalties into the future while also lowering the player’s cap charge in 2023. The two most likely players for this course of action are Brady and David.

Re-Signing Brady Could Kill Two Birds With One Stone

If Brady wants to return for his 24th season and wants to do so in Tampa Bay, the Bucs could solve two looming problems. The first is the question of who will play quarterback for the team next year. Currently the only quarterback under contract for the Bucs in 2023 is Kyle Trask.

Trask, the Bucs’ second-round selection in the 2021 NFL Draft looks to be the future of the franchise but has still left many wondering if he is a starting-caliber player. Despite the lackluster results on the field this year the Bucs roster still boasts an incredibly talented nucleus of players. With the right coaching approach and quality quarterback play, this team could jump right back into Super Bowl contention next year.

Brady offers the team the best opportunity to do just that. And in re-signing he also could help solve the team’s salary cap troubles in 2023. If Brady agrees to a one-year “extension” at say, $30 million, the Bucs would be able to restructure his dead money with part of it hitting this year’s cap, but much of it deferring to 2024.

Tampa Bay could sign Brady with a fully-guaranteed bases salary of $1,165,000 with the remaining $28,835,000 to be structured as some combination of prorated bonuses. The team would most certainly use the maximum four “void years” for that proration. This means that only $5,767,000 of those bonuses would be charged to the 2023 salary cap.

It also means that the team would only have to absorb $10,776,000 of the current $35,104,000 of dead money in 2023. His total cap charge for 2023 would come to $17,708,000. This would actually improve the team’s situation $17,396,000 for next year and clear up almost half of their cap overage in one single move. Plus, it would secure their starting quarterback.

But buyer beware.

As I stated above “The bill always comes due.” While this helps the team in 2023, it also creates an even bigger dead cap hit for the following year. If the Bucs took this course of action, they would be setting themselves up for a dead cap charge of $47,396,000 in 2024. At some point, whether it be in 2023 or sometime thereafter, the Bucs will have to absorb the true cost of having the game’s winningest quarterback on their roster.

Given the high level of play that David is still performing at it isn’t out of the question that he is able to secure another contract with the team averaging $12.5 million per year. But given his recent injury history and that he will be two years older than when he secured that last contract, I think it may be more reasonable to project him in line with the $10 million/year that Bobby Wagner signed for this past offseason with the Rams.

David could similarly take $1,165,000 in guaranteed base salary with the remaining $8,835,000 coming in the form of prorated bonuses. Assuming the Bucs max out the proration once again David’s total cap charges including the $6,855,000 in dead money he was set to count against the 2023 cap, we get a total cap charge of $5,217,000. The team doesn’t save much in this scenario (just $1,638,000), but they do improve their cap situation while securing one additional starter.

Bucs Will Have To Restructure Some Contracts

There will be no way for the Bucs to become cap compliant in 2023 without restructuring some contracts. A “simple restructure” in the NFL calls for a team to take some portion of a player’s base salary and convert it to a bonus. That bonus is then prorated over the course of the remainder of the contract. Players enjoy it because the payment of that now-bonus has to be made almost immediately. Teams use it to create immediate cap space.

Teams can also add additional void years when doing the restructure to increase the proration as well. The CBA only allows for proration to be done over a maximum of five years, so you never see teams add more than four void years for this accounting loophole.

Players the Bucs have under contract for 2023 that look like prime candidates for this exercise are Shaq Barrett ($9,813,750), Shaq Mason ($4,751,250), Chris Godwin ($14,190,000), Carlton Davis III ($6,710,000), Vita Vea ($8,565,000), and Ryan Jensen ($8,501,250). Using max restructures without adding any additional void years that aren’t already on their contracts and these six players could help the team free up $52,531,250 in cap space.

If you add this to the potential savings from the Brady and David re-signings and the Bucs would have over $32 million in available cap space.

Potential Cuts

There are other players on the roster who could similarly have their contracts restructured that also may end up getting cut. There are five I believe to be the most likely. Those five are Donovan Smith, Ryan Succop, Leonard Fournette, Cam Brate, and Russell Gage. All four of these players would provide the Bucs with cap savings if they were let go and all four have a case for not bringing enough value to justify their 2023 salaries.

Three of these five feel like they are most likely going to happen. Brate would give the team $2,030,000 in additional room while allowing the team to make Cade Otton the full-time starting tight end. Fournette similarly would provide $3,500,000 in additional room while allowing Rachaad White to assume the primary starter role. Succop could give the Bucs $3,250,000 in room while giving the team the opportunity to pursue a kicker with range more commensurate with today’s NFL.

Smith and Gage are the wild cards for me. The team currently doesn’t have a viable option to replace Smith at left tackle without creating another hole. Many have called for his release in order to allow Tristan Wirfs to move to left tackle. Scott Reynolds made a compelling case for it in yesterday’s SR’s Fab Five.

But in today’s NFL you still have to have two bookend tackles to have a strong passing attack. If you move Wirfs from right to left, you are still in need of a starting tackle and now you have to have at least some concern that Wirfs’ play will suffer. And looking at the free agents that may be available next year it is reasonable to think there will be more talent available among left tackles than right.

Smith could provide the Bucs with anywhere from $9.95 – $15.25 million in savings if he is let go, depending on how the team designates his release. So, it is definitely a conversation that will be had among Jason Licht, Mike Greenberg and the rest of the Bucs’ top brass. Especially after head coach Todd Bowles admitted that the team has considered benching Smith this season. While there is still a chance Smith is with the team in 2023 the likelihood is very low.

Gage is one that I am hoping the Bucs keep. While he certainly hasn’t played up to his $10 million per year contract he signed in the offseason, it hasn’t been because of his performance when healthy. Gage has been plagued all season by a recurring hamstring injury.

But he doesn’t have a history of being injury prone, and Bucs receivers have shown to be able to be productive in seasons following hamstring ailments. Add onto that the fact that Gage has the best average separation among all Bucs receivers per Next Gen Stats and you have yourself a receiver with a history of being good, providing a skill set the rest of the receivers struggle with, on a reasonable deal.

That’s not something you should be getting in line to give up. While the Bucs could cut Gage and save anywhere from $2.8 – $5.0 million, they could just as easily add him to the restructure group and still save $4,460,000. If he struggles in 2023 the team could still cut him in 2024 and save $3.3 million. No, in my opinion Gage should stay.

Change Is Coming

While the Bucs have gone to great lengths to reduce roster turnover over the past two years 2023 will undoubtedly bring quite a bit of roster turnover. There are plenty of aging veterans who will most likely not return in 2023. And as you can see the team will have quite a few decisions to make beyond that.

There is still a quality nucleus to build around in Tampa Bay. But the 2023 version of this team will need to have some differences in order to get back to the championship-caliber teams that Bucs fans were just getting used to. And while at first glance the cap situation looks dire to be able to create those changes it really isn’t as bad as it seems.

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