PFT: Shaq Is Defensive Player Of Year
January 2nd, 2020
Receives award.
It isn’t just the NFL that hands out awards.
Count in the creator, curator and overall guru of Pro Football Talk, the great Mike Florio, who likes to hand out verbal hardware to deserving players and coaches as well.
Florio was leaning towards knighting Chandler Jones of Arizona with the award until Jones was shut out on sacks in the Cardinals’ final game.
Instead, Shaq Barrett had three sacks to not just break icon Warren Sapp’s franchise record, but finish the season as the NFL sack leader with 19.5. That was enough for Florio to name Shaq “Defensive Player of the Year.”
Last year in Denver, Shaq played in 13 games and did not start. He finished with three sacks. So in his first year as a starter outside of Denver, Shaq nearly had seven times as many sacks. Wow!
Shaq is smiling a lot lately. You would too if you knew in a matter of weeks someone is going to drop a minimum of $15 million in your lap and maybe quadruple your salary for 2020 alone.
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:16 am
Nice. He deserves it.
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:29 am
Well deserved!
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:43 am
I’m a touch more than a couple of cold ones in, but I’m guessing that this dude is our best free agent pickup ever? I’m happy for him and us too if we resign him.
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:46 am
Good job vea , suh ,jpp, nassib,gholston and Todd Bowles. Also Licht for giving shaq a pop. And for shaq great job. Superstar stand out and get the job done. He certainly got it done. And took the opportunity and made the most. Pay the man.
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:51 am
He played inspired football ..congrats Shaq!
January 2nd, 2020 at 2:53 am
Is this legit? or is it just PFT?
He deserves the legit award named by the NFL!
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:07 am
He needs help though. I hope they find a way to keep all the D line together and improve the bottom of the rotation as well. Once nassib got hurt and jpp was not there his numbers fell off. Oh yeah and can someone please wrap jpp in bubble wrap this offseason.
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:08 am
@Evo2706,
Agree with everything you said, especially the bubble wrap!
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:21 am
Great year now let’s pay the man and get this thing going early.
The system could have helped him in his performance and I hope he sees this and not jump to a place that won’t call his number like Bowles does which allows him to do his thing.
January 2nd, 2020 at 7:20 am
Totally earned it . Great year !
He is Someone who really deserves a nickname
Funny how jameis has 3 he doesnt deserve
His salary per year just went to around 20 mil per
Will bucs pay up ? Who knows.
The one year prior deals seemed nice at time but thats a burner
January 2nd, 2020 at 7:33 am
Shaq likes it here….you can tell…..pay him and squeeze everyone else….
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:05 am
Isn’t it interesting that Jason Licht had a year in which the cap was tight, yet he still managed to assemble what we needed on defense, fit it under the cap, ended the year with a surplus, and now we currently have $89 million to go forward with?
Haters were wanting him gone for cap issues, lol.
Imagine if we did not have that money and had to re-sign all these players.
And more can be freed up too.
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:30 am
The impressive thing about Shaq wasn’t the hot start of 9 sacks in the first 4 games, it was after the hot start, he had 10.5 sacks in the next 12 games. A lot of that had to do with the return of JPP, but Shaq had do get them on the ground. Down the stretch, JPP was still more disruptive and perhaps better but Shaq played extremely well.
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:55 am
Sounds expensive
January 2nd, 2020 at 9:11 am
Bonzai said “ Imagine if we did not have that money and had to re-sign all these players.”
The reason why the Bucs do have cap space is bc non of those players are actually signed for this yr. no shaq, JPP, nassib to name a few. Hell, the only qb under contract right now is Ryan griffin. So that money is going to dry up quick once players start getting signed.
“ Haters were wanting him gone for cap issues, lol.”
No, ppl wanted him gone due to his poor draft history. It hasn’t been stellar but if the secondary improves (which it was looking better towards the end of the season), then a lot has been forgiven. Licht can acquire draft picks like a true genius but he can sure waste them quick!
January 2nd, 2020 at 10:42 am
Licht was on his last legs here. He saved his job by luring his old bud BA to Tampa.
How much do we believe Licht had to say in this year’s draft?
Next years? Or does BA really have the final say?
BA may have saved Lichts job.
January 2nd, 2020 at 10:44 am
it’s nutso that they voided jpp’s last year on his contract
January 2nd, 2020 at 10:50 am
PAY THE MAN!
January 2nd, 2020 at 11:47 am
adam from ny Says:
January 2nd, 2020 at 10:44 am
it’s nutso that they voided jpp’s last year on his contract
Go back to week one and most of the posters here were pleading to cut him outright, that he’d never play football again and we should spend that money elsewhere!
January 2nd, 2020 at 9:19 pm
Well deserved and worth every penny!!