Mark Dominik: Teams Ready To Pounce On Bucs
February 28th, 2023
“Mark, I might cry if I let Lavonte David walk.”
Interesting intel on how NFL teams are preparing to pick apart the leftovers of the Bucs roster after AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht throws away the scraps.
As the combine begins today (no, Joe’s not talking about the TV show this weekend), it isn’t just incoming rookies for which teams are cobbling together dossiers. It’s also the pros.
Former Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik appeared on “The Blitz,” heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio, and said teams are finalizng breakdowns on players that may be released before free agency starts in two weeks.
Teams deeply study other teams in bad salary cap situations, Dominik said. And who has a worse cap situation than the Bucs? As a result, Dominik said most general managers expect their staffs to complete full and detailed reports on nearly every Bucs player because Licht is expected to shed salaries to get under the cap by the league deadline in 15 days.
Dominik said he would expect general managers to be like vultures circling over the carcasses of the Bucs roster, prepared to pounce when a valuable player is let go.
So Dominik emphasized it’s not just a busy season to break down college players at the combine, but for teams to hone plans to raid rosters expecting a makeover in the coming days.
February 28th, 2023 at 3:56 am
Now
February 28th, 2023 at 4:23 am
Trade Devin White
February 28th, 2023 at 4:41 am
Bucs Guy … And replace him with who? Britt? The NFL isn’t the Federal government; there are no free lunches. Dom’s right in that we should ‘expect teams to be like vultures circling over the carcass of the roster of the Bucs’. Teams in horrible salary CAP positions have a ‘fire sale’ for a reason: they have no choice.
If you don’t like Devin White, fine. Trading White will gain us $11 mil in salary CAP space only until we have to replace him. But he & Lavonte each led the Bucs with 124 tackles last season. LVD’s a free agent as you well know, with no guarantees he’ll be a Buc come this Spring. We can’t just divest ourselves of our 2 leading tacklers in the middle of our defense WITHOUT a very solid Plan B being in-place. And right now we’ve got nada.
February 28th, 2023 at 5:26 am
Release Donovan Smith ($10M), Leonard Fournette ($3.4M) and Cam Brate ($2M). If you can trade, trade Gage for a day 2 pick. Otherwise you may need to consider releasing him also ($2.8M). Shaq Mason ($5.2M)? I’m on the bubble there, so I guess the Bucs should keep him and try to just restructure his deal instead. Contrary to popular opinion, keep Succop ($3.7M). Bucs will need points from the kicking game. He may not have the big leg, but he’s reliable inside the 50. Keep him.
With the White trade and the 4 players above, that would get $30M off the books. Their replacements could be drafted. Only $27M of restructuring to go to make it to the cap. Then $9M for draft picks plus at least $20-30M to re-sign some of our own FAs and maybe 1 or 2 bargin FAs. Restructuring of contracts means pushing the bill down the line. No dead cap money next year — yet (though cutting the 4 players above ). Bucs only have $30M of cap space next year. I’m afraid this could take at least another year to dig out from under to get financially solvent.
Licht and his team will have to really earn their pay this year … and next. Need to get back to the mode where we sign players to deals where the Bucs could cut them after year 1 or 2 if they don’t perform and owe them nothing.
February 28th, 2023 at 5:28 am
Draft White’s replacement with one of the picks you get (2nd and a 3rd).
February 28th, 2023 at 5:29 am
Re-sign LVD. Better player and less expensive.
February 28th, 2023 at 6:44 am
When the universal concensus is this Bucs team will be terrible for the foreseeable future why keep any player with a big contract?
February 28th, 2023 at 7:03 am
What players of value are we talking about? D. Smith, Cam Brate, SMB, lol? Whoever the Bucs let go, they can have them Joe.
February 28th, 2023 at 7:46 am
Maybe Licht should let some players go “for no good reason” like Dominick.
The good news is that we may finally get a comp pick or two…
An LVD signing elsewhere……Dean for sure…..maybe Edwards….perhaps even Hicks…..
Get younger, get cheaper, get picks.
February 28th, 2023 at 8:03 am
GMs pounding away on their keyboards concocting their plans for the Bucs roster, in response to an interview with a failed former Bucs GM. What pearls of wisdom are likely to come out of this post and thread! ROTFLMAO!
Hey guys, we actually have a GM, a pretty good one coming off a Super Bowl win and two straight division championships. He’ll do what he’s gotta do.
February 28th, 2023 at 8:28 am
That “rockstar” moniker is old and tired. If he actually was one, he’d have been rehired somewhere like the USFL
February 28th, 2023 at 9:12 am
@ Bucs Guy
I agree that there will probably be a few cuts… If we cut the 4 or 5 players you listed plus trade White – we will have to replace them all and only have 6 picks that are in the top 195 picks.
Now we just added 5 more players to the 26 free agents we will need to sign… Let’s say we get a 3rd round pick for D. white. So now we have (7) picks in the top 195 to replace 26 players…
The main problem I have with the Bucs salary cap is who can they restructure?
Jenson – no
Vea – yes
Evans – maybe
Godwin – yes
Gage – no (you just cut him)
Davis – yes
Barrett – no
D. Smith – no (you just cut him)
Mason – no (you just cut him)
Fournette – no (you just cut him)
White – no (you just traded him)
So how are we going to get this done with only 3 maybe 4 contracts to restructure?
I believe the only way out is to keep under performing players like White, Gage, Fournette and Smith and restructure their deals and hopefully get a few of them to agree to a pay decrease…
I know it sounds bad but I don’t see any other REALISTIC way to do it.
February 28th, 2023 at 10:10 am
All I know is that it will be a very ugly season this year……
February 28th, 2023 at 10:11 am
Marine Buc … ‘I believe the only way out is to keep under performing players like White, Gage, Fournette and Smith and restructure their deals and hopefully get a few of them to agree to a pay decrease’.
Remember the old ‘caught between a rock & a hard place’ saying? That be us. There’s no easy, clean way out of this mess.
I agree with keeping your choices above BTW (with the possible exception of White), mostly because they’re all quality players who happened to have a mediocre 2022. Some of that was largely due to injuries and HOPEFULLY that’s not the case in 2023. Restructuring contracts always seems to mean either a longer contract OR more money for the player; very few do it out of the goodness of their hearts to help out the billionaire ownership.
Lots of folks talk about trading guys, but that requires Two to Tango. And anyone we find to ‘help us out’ would surely be looking to take advantage of our situation; wouldn’t blame them. In that case though, we lose from a long-term perspective. We MIGHT solve part of our short-term dilemma, but we’ll be giving up quality players without having the $$$ or high draft picks to replace them with. Yuck.
February 28th, 2023 at 10:14 am
When this site continually quotes Ian Beckles, Mark Dominik and Michael Clayton, it shows there is not much to say. Dominik was never a rock star. That’s a joke. Clayton was such a failed WR that people comment on his blocking. And Beckles abused a horse.
February 28th, 2023 at 10:28 am
@ DR
“Restructuring contracts always seems to mean either a longer contract OR more money for the player; very few do it out of the goodness of their hearts to help out the billionaire ownership.”
The only reason a player agrees to restructure is to convert non-guaranteed salary dollars into fully guaranteed bonus dollars… That’s it.
Keeping D. White and giving him an extension is a risk and if it weren’t for our horrible cap situation I wouldn’t do it. But there are very few options for reducing our negative cap at the moment.
February 28th, 2023 at 10:31 am
@ DR
“Lots of folks talk about trading guys, but that requires Two to Tango. And anyone we find to ‘help us out’ would surely be looking to take advantage of our situation; wouldn’t blame them. In that case though, we lose from a long-term perspective. We MIGHT solve part of our short-term dilemma, but we’ll be giving up quality players without having the $$$ or high draft picks to replace them with. Yuck.”
Exactly – if we had 20 draft picks in the first 4 rounds I would say “heck ya – let’s make some cuts”… But the reality is we already have 26 free agents, very little money and only 6 picks in the top 195.
It’s like a giant brain teaser… You make cuts to gain cap just to spend more money to replace them with worse players… LOL!!!!
February 28th, 2023 at 10:43 am
I agree with the trade Devin White sentiment.
February 28th, 2023 at 10:49 am
LOL!!!
What do you guys expect to receive in compensation for trading Devin White?
A mediocre, overpaid, middle linebacker on the final year of his rookie contract…
Do you really think another NFL GM would be dumb enough to give us more than a 3rd or 4th round pick?
If so – I have a very cool bridge to sell you.
February 28th, 2023 at 11:16 am
Funny. I don’t ever remember Dumbestnik doing that for the Bucs when he was failing historically as the Bucs general mangler. What a maroon.
February 28th, 2023 at 11:18 am
But, Kyle Trask!
February 28th, 2023 at 11:46 am
Please NO!!!! “Tampabaybucfan Says:
February 28th, 2023 at 7:46 am
Maybe Licht should let some players go “for no good reason” like Dominick.”
Then we will read about it for the next decade… I can re-read that crap again and again and again. Because actions were taken, decisions were made. I would hate to see our OLB Nelson have the same thing happen to him. Finally getting his NFL skills climbing upwards and Licht let him go for no good reason…
February 28th, 2023 at 12:05 pm
I would find a way to trade Devin White. He can be replaced. That might free up quite a bit of cash guys.
February 28th, 2023 at 12:31 pm
I’m sure teams are climbing all over themselves at a chance to sign Donovan Smith, Leonard Fournette, and Cam Brate. Those are just vet minimum players that the Bucs were dumb enough to give lots of money to.
February 28th, 2023 at 12:41 pm
@ Marine: where is the bridge? 😉
February 28th, 2023 at 12:48 pm
Goatfarmer Says:
“But, Kyle Trask!”
Well, when starting a trip out in a -$55 million salary cap chasm.
Where we found yet another Silver Treasure for our Tampa Fort.
Kyle Trask’s contract values of:
23- $1,163,212 Salary
24- $1,414,818 Salary
Makes that cost-effective, to my non-certifiable geoman yacker silvers pincer, along with my non-certifiable wax ring-sealed letter of understandable financial matters. Per whit the clerk of the Governor’s ‘stable to the table’ proclamation. So I do feel I do have a fairly good general grasp of Acountin’. I feel if we could do this type of a contract of shaving silvers with a vet and a drafted QB.
We could be in a stable condition in 2024 to have higher draft capital if we need it or use it to advance our team to climb back to being out of our own self-created chasm by 2025.
Many thanks, TB! Another Silver treasure was captured, now in Tampa’s Fort. Completely worth every silver pinced and kicked down the road.
February 28th, 2023 at 2:17 pm
Can’t take anyone seriously who thinks we should keep Succop.
He has no leg and missed easy kicks against Dallas.
He is expensive too.
February 28th, 2023 at 2:32 pm
Just read a report on the impending release of Fournette. Thank you Lombardi Lenny for your contributions to this franchise and good luck in your future endeavors
February 28th, 2023 at 4:59 pm
Lenny was a good player for us. Maybe we can trade him for a late draft pick because we need swinging dicks.
Thes cap thing is really worse than face value. You cut or trade a $15-20 million in salary and only create a few million in cap.
Guaranteed money … Restructuring salary with bonus. Player gets hurt or ODs on donuts and teams pay through the nose for a guy who’s no longer around and no way to replace him.
February 28th, 2023 at 5:03 pm
Lenny was a good player for us. Maybe we can trade him for a late draft pick because we need warm bodies
Thes cap thing is really worse than face value. You cut or trade a $15-20 million in salary and only create a few million in cap.
Guaranteed money … Restructuring salary with bonus. Player gets hurt or ODs on donuts and teams pay through the nose for a guy who’s no longer around and no way to replace him.
February 28th, 2023 at 11:05 pm
The roster is getting old and moldy. Like Steve and Ira always say, it’s time to call Josh at Florida’s Elite Restoration. That’s Florida’s Elite Restoration, they will restore this team.
March 1st, 2023 at 7:09 pm
Oh maybe the Bucs are better off letting half you clowns run the team since you seem to have all the easy answers to all the questions and problems… Yeah trade Devin White and replace him with who ?? He was a top 3 off ball linebacker in the NFL the last 3 years.. I forgot , you have it all figured out so I’ll just stop. Go Bucs and true Bucs fans !!