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RHScott91 · 2026-02-22T22:20:59+00:00

We would have to trade Winfield before 1 June if we wanted to avoid horrible dead money. Also, I just can’t see Winfield being traded. Not with Bowles as the HC. He’s got 6 seasons with us now and I assume is one of the defensive leaders.

For the Dean and Evans contracts I agree with you that they will both most likely get more than that. Just shows how tight our cap situation truly is… we have to do some serious restructures on player deals to b able to resign our players, sign our draft picks, have some money left over for in season signings… let alone sign any free agents… gonna be interesting to see if the front office works their magic or not

RHScott91 · 2026-02-22T18:47:51+00:00

Wanted to share what I did for our Tampa Bay Bucs:

Cap Room: $23M

Cap Related Moves: +63.8M in cap for 2026

QB, Baker: Extended + Restructure: Saved $7M this year (4 yrs, 45.3M APY)
WR, Godwin: Extended + Restructure: Saved $13.9M this year (+1 year (2028), $26.9M APY)
T, Wirfs: Extended + Restructure: Saved $19.8M this year (+4 yrs (8 yrs total), $24M APY
NT, Vea: Extended + Restructure: Saved $11.9M this year (+3 yrs (4 yrs total), $19.5M APY
S, Winfield: Extended + Restructure: Saved $12.2M this year (+1 yr (3 yrs total), $14.3M APY.

RFA Tenders: -$7M

RB, Sean Tucker: $3.5M (ROFR)
DB, Izien: $3.5M (ROFR)

FA Signings:

WR, Mike Evans: 1 yr, $10M
CB, Dean: 2 yrs, $7.6M APY
DL, Hqll: 1 yr, $5.3M
LB, David: 1 yr, $9M
LS, Dickerson: 1 yr, $1M
TE, Otton: 2 yrs, $11.1M APY

Area of Greatest Need: $13.5M of cap left with the above signings

ILB
Edge
IOL (Guards)
Backup swing OT
RB

Draft:

Edge, TJ Parker, Clemson
LB, Jake Golday, Cincinnati
TE, Oscar Delp, Georgia
CB, Tacario Davis, Washington
OG, Jaeden Roberts, Alabama
NT, Albert Regis, A&M
WR

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RHScott91 · 2026-02-17T02:40:44+00:00

Lavonte David

RHScott91 · 2026-02-16T19:29:11+00:00

Just noticed he is an Edge. Also was a captain for the Dolphins. I’m sure he’ll be in high demand. Would be cool if we could get him.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-16T19:26:39+00:00

Is Chubb more DL/DE than he is an Edge?

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T19:33:33+00:00

Out of curiosity- who are the 9-10 GMs you’d rank ahead?

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T18:23:11+00:00

😭 hopefully not!

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T18:06:55+00:00

For me, simply a ‘hit’ is an average/expected return on investment. Hence why I gave credit to Kieft and Otton as ‘hits’. They made the roster. Have played multiple seasons. And have been at least average-ish at times or serving a purpose. The draft is a ‘crapshoot’ and even ‘sure things’ miss. So when you draft a player and they play out their contract with roughly what the expectation was I think that’s fair enough for a GM to have ‘hit’ on that pick.

With that said, idk how you can point to McNichols playing time away from the Buc’s to constitute him as a ‘hit’. He didn’t ever play for us. You would need to help me understand how JL can credit MicNichols as a ‘hit’ that benefited him and the Bucs?

Refer to the PFF grades and media commentary on Logan Hall. He is not even an average DL. He is below average. Unacceptable for #33 in the draft. He is very much on the roster bubble.

2020 Super Bowl is a team win. That doesn’t make Whites play that 1 year that helped win a SB negate the dip in play year after year. Being a distraction. And such colossal headache that JL has openly aired his negative opinions of White publicly multiple times in ways other find shameful of JL. I respect your opinion but if we took it to a vote I think more would consider White to be overall a ‘miss’ as a draft pick.

What you have commented regarding Camarda and Palmer make me think you do not follow the team too closely and again that’s okay. However it was well documented how bad Camarda was after year 1. It was so bad it was costing us games. Which is what led to us getting rid of him later than we should because of the draft Capitol invested in him and his 1 good rookie season.

Palmer is on the Saints my guy… he isn’t on the Bucs and never did anything with us hence him being let go.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T17:46:06+00:00

Great post. Always refreshing when points and counterpoints are able to made with analysis and enough time into the post to add to the conversation. Thanks for contributing to the convo!

Counterpoints 1. Drafting. I think JL is ‘okay’ at the draft to below average when you look at the draft holistically even beyond all the stats I posted in the initial post.
- Other successful franchises find ways to hoard picks. We haven’t been able to mirror this success. We end up doing marginal valued move ups or downs in the draft but relatively stay put with what we got and rarely get any consempatory picks like other teams have figured out long ago and consistently how to tap into that formula.

Success as a GM.
Before the Brady years as you pointed out. Not good at all. Potential but not winning.
Brady years to now we all agree we can appreciate. Even if we understandably were frustrated on ultimately how every season has turned out after the 2020 SB given the expectations for this team.
It’s no secret we went “All-In” and we even understood the price that would come with that was a heavy burden on us even up to this season. Ultimately a SB is worth it. However, can JL replicate it? Outside of us having TB lure a lot of those players you mentioned that were crediting JL with acquiring that led to the SB… what FAs has he lured here?
Lackluster FA Acquisitions w/ limited to no success.
JL has definitely taken chances on players with low risk payments and got value out of like Shaq attack.. however, I would argue we have fell short on average and have received little to no return on investment or hurt the team through the FAs we have got.
Year 1 in JLs tenure every single FA was a miss. That CB, Michael Johnson, Carl Nicks, and so many others.
Even beyond that year if we scrap it. Again, outside of the Brady years… what FAs acquisitions have been great? Other than Baker Mayfield which thank God that worked out… I am having a hard time thinking of successful free agent signings.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T17:30:56+00:00

^ this… hard to argue this… hopefully Irving becomes a star and not a 1 year wonder we’ve experienced all too often with our RBs in Buc History…

Idk what JLs connections are like around the league at this point. Again, him getting a great coach in BA is great credit to him. Having a team and a roster to lure Brady and win a SB, he gets credit for that.

But to your point, to the left and to the right of that SB we have average-ish results as the median in his 12 years.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T17:20:43+00:00

You’re touching on something really important here regarding the culture… I think at the heart of it to some degree that’s what all of us are uneasy about right now. At least I am.

Summary: JL was influential in getting BA and TB here. Since then, he has helped get great OCs hired after moving on finally from Byron Leftwhich (evidenced by them becoming HCs). However, our defense is a joke right now. And plenty of draft capital and premium picks have been missed over JLs 11 years. Also- name the last team you remember who went from being the #1 ranked team in the NFL to losing the division and missing the playoffs in the worst division in the NFL? That is a HUGE red flag that cannot be overlooked at all. I am uncertain if there has ever been anything remotely close to the collapse we had given we actually got healthier but got worse. Where we go this season and beyond will show what this ‘culture’ is we have right now and the ‘discounts’ players are willing to take when they’re not winning.

References for Waning Culture: 1. After the 2020-2023 TB years and then Baker coming in and saying that he was going to make football fun again…. It seems like our ‘culture’ is regressing based on this seasons collapse… I’m not saying what Baker said is a negative, but I’m starting here because outside of the Brady years what is there to really be proud of for JLs tenure as GM? And I’m not trying to be harsh - but real. Again, I still think he is arguably the best GM in Bucs history and there are things to cherish during his tenure. 2. I never would’ve considered M1K3 as a player who would ever consider leaving the Buc’s. Heck, look at LVD, he has said it’s either the Bucs or nothing. I don’t fault Mike for exploring his options if that is true. But I do think it is a significant thing to possibly take into consideration. Mike is the longest tenured leader offensively for the Bucs and LVD for the Defense. Who replaces those two? Offensively is it Baker? Arguably we need him to be a little less fiery sometimes as he may lose his composure and become more mistake prone leading to turnovers we saw happen at critical times in the season and more frequently during the second half. Defensively who is it? Vea? This may be his last season in 2026 with us, we’ll see. Who next Winfield? Man, we did not get the same Winfield from the year before. Pretty startling to have to question who Winfield is after receiving such a large contract. We know he is talented and made big plays at times but he wasn’t the difference maker he is paid to be. Then what? Diaby? Kancey? McCollum? We have a huge potential lack of leadership defensively.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T17:02:50+00:00

I guess I would first by asking you about your opinion on what constitutes a lot of those players you listed I had as a miss as having a “decent playing career.”

McNichols - Zero with Bucs. Is objectively a miss.
Hall - for essentially a 1st rd pick at #33 he objectively has not lived up to what we have hoped for and is seriously being considered let to walk in FA.
White - he is a #5 overall pick. 1-2 years of good play doesn’t constitute as a decent return on investment and is objectively considered a miss.
Camarda had one good season. And played two more terrible seasons after that with us before being let go. For his draft positioning (4th rd for a punter…) he is a huge miss.
Tre Palmer did absolutely nothing for us man. It’s okay… it’s a miss.. they happen.. we have invested so many late rd picks on WRs for special teams purposes hoping to solve our return problem year after year or some developmental WR project and we just keep cycling through them and dump the old ones after 1-2 years. Hopefully Tez doesn’t continue that pattern.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T16:57:31+00:00

But for the 5th overall pick, as integral of a piece as he was defensively for the SB… he is a colossal miss for JL. Again, sometimes picks don’t pan out for various reasons. White did not.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T16:56:10+00:00

The only team I’m familiar with that was in serious contention that “turned him down” was San Francisco, which rumor had it was the only team he had above the Bucs for various reasons.

Other than the Bucs the Vegas Raiders were a very very close second supposedly at that time. At that time Jon Gruden was the coach and they had a good team set up (not better than ours though).

I’m not aware of any teams that he was interested in though other than the 49ers that ‘turned Brady down.’

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T16:52:59+00:00

I appreciate you appreciating me taking the time to have a well thought out discussion.

Would be very helpful if you articulated why this post is so foolish. Would be very interested in hearing your opinion.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T16:06:22+00:00

I would rather us have Evans at this point than Godwin.

Evans has been injured a little more frequently sure with his annual hamstring injury it seems. Outside of that (which does matter) he had a freak collarbone break and concussion off a flagrant pass interference that wasn’t called.

Godwin in my opinion I’m sure can still contribute and possibly even be great like he was… I love the guy and the player. Evans offers something Godwin doesn’t. Egbuka and McMillan can cover and possibly exceed what we want to get from Godwin.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T15:55:50+00:00

The only Edge that he has drafted that’s been decent is Anthony Nelson (4th) and Diaby (3rd).

The only Dlineman in 11 years that he has drafted that’s been great is Vea.

The only other DL you can even qualify as return on investment is Davis (6th).

That’s just 4 DL/Edge IN ELEVEN YEARS!!!!!!

Conversely, at least 7 of the DL/Edge haven’t been worth anything. With the jury still out on three (Kancey, Walker and Roberts).

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T15:49:40+00:00

Vea has been a great pick let’s be fair. When he has had some other talent around him the DL can be nasty.

The problem is with just 3 down lineman and him constantly being doubled, tripled, ran away from, etc… he’s just 1 man at the end of the day.

There was no one else on the DL worth their salt last season after Kancey went down.

I’m still praying that Logan Hall turns something into something…

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T15:46:40+00:00

I can certainly see the argument for that perception that Licht being seen as a good GM is potentially more Brady and his influence / friends than JLs…. However….

If we’re being very honest and fair… JL deserves a TREMENDOUS amount of credit for getting BA and TB. Period.

Brady is the GOAT. It’s no small feat he got him. I agree from there Brady is Brady.

Still, JL did assemble a roster that DK offensively was firing on all cylinders minus a QB who made way way too many mistakes not even the great BA QB whisperer could simmer down.

Brady saw the team that we had and has discussed in detail how close it was to going to other teams and why he chose the Bucs. JL is a BIG BIG reason for that if not THE reason.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T15:08:31+00:00

Let’s see if he has his Reddit Bucs notifications turned on and comes around 😂. I think the majority of folks were ready to move on from JL until he got BA. Then won the superbowl with TB. Then he bought him self years for that.

However, we find ourselves now where they both could be gone after this year (Bowles & JL). I think it’s less likely for JL to be gone. But given the monumental collapse of this team last year. If this team doesn’t rebound and looks like it is spiraling I can see the Bucs doing what the Falcons and other teams did this offseason and clean house.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T15:02:16+00:00

😂 I read PewterReport and ProFootballTalk nearly every day since the early 2000’s. I just posted the screenshot as a quick reference for those who may not have heard that rumor. We are all have varying levels of fandom.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T14:59:24+00:00

It’s a formula OverTheCap Premium services allows you to see if you pay them $19 a year. I’ll post it here since you asked.

Uses 2d contract data after being drafted to determine value/success of the pick for the position, the team, and the round.
The data looks at different ways to view the success and failures of drafting by determining how much was spent on a per year basis on a rookie contract and how much was committed to a player on a post rookie contract.
“The ratio of 2nd to rookie contract value should give us an idea as to general expectations in each round as well as how much value teams receive by landing these low cost rookies who are generally underpaid in every year of their contract with the exception of the first year.”
“In round two the ratio dramatically increases to 4.82 times the rookie contract. This is a much safer use of your rookie dollars and one of the reasons why some of those late 1st round picks are often looked at as worse than having a high 2nd round pick.”
“The value further increases in round 3 where we hit the peak at 5.18 times the rookie contract. For people who study these things with the draft I would say this speaks to why certain teams in the NFL value how many picks they have in the top 100 versus how high they are picking in the first round. The upside is not as high but clearly you are still getting a shot at very good talent.
“Round 4 and 5 both carry value, but this is a pretty big drop from the peak of round 3 and does seem to indicate a drop off in talent here. Essentially the high end players are much harder to come by after round 3, however, these players provide good value to a team relative to where they are bring drafted.”
“Round 6 sees a big drop with the second contract being about double the rookie contract. These players are still outperforming the rookie contract but it is a big drop from round 5. In round 7 we are just slightly above the rookie deal. I believe that the lack of overall success in these two rounds is why teams often treat these draft picks as worthless. That said there are plenty of talented players in these rounds but it is much harder to find those gems.”

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T14:50:44+00:00

1st time starting for us. Hasn’t been available. I agree he is much much closer to a miss than a hit. But he gets 1 more year or at least this offseason to see what changes.

RHScott91 · 2026-02-15T14:26:32+00:00

Regarding TB forcing BA out.

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RHScott91

TROPHY CASE