Winning Only Two Years Away
February 9th, 2023
Challenge.
Generally, teams with losing records in salary cap hell don’t fare well. At first.
Yes, the Bucs had a losing record. With Tom Brady if you can imagine. And the team is likely to get worse. If Lavonte David and Jamel Dean walk (not unlikely), try try to tell Joe how a team that loses them and Brady can be better?
Former Vikings and Titans suit Jeff Diamond details on The33rdTeam.com that the Eagles proved a team in salary cap hell can bounce back in only two years.
It started with the trade of quarterback Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts only two years after signing Wentz to a four-year, $128 million extension. There was a $33.8 million cap hit on Wentz, along with another $17 million from exiled veterans DeSean Jackson, Zach Ertz and Alshon Jeffery.
Roseman worked his usual cap magic. The formula came through veteran releases, contract restructures, incorporating voidable years into a lot of contracts, and a relatively bargain free-agent signing for a superstar defender in Haason Reddick. He also drafted young, inexpensive replacements — led by second-round QB Jalen Hurts — who could play at a high level quickly.
Well, for all of this to happen, Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht has to hit many homers. He’s done it before.
Licht will have to nail it on the quarterback. He’s going to have to find a pass rusher. He’s also likely going to have to find a left tackle of the future.
The scary thing is, Hall of Fame personnel man Gil Brandt once ranked the three most important positions on an NFL team. Quarterback, pass rusher and left tackle.
If Licht can pull that off in the next two years, he might someday join Brandt in the hallowed halls of Canton.
February 9th, 2023 at 12:08 pm
Out of curiosity, the Saints have been said to be in cap he11 for a long time, longer than Tampa. How come it is only coming to bite them now at the same time as Tampa? Also, back in the day, Dallas and San Fran never had cap issues but lso retained great players (though Jerry Jones and DeBartolo probably just had guys like Deion Sanders access their bonuses in the safety deposit boxes they set up in the Caymans to get certain players to sign for less.) Anyhow, everyone is whining about the Bucs salary probs but the Saints are supposed to be worse and are interviewing Carr. Obviously it is a problem that can be overcome with good accounting and only hyped by trolls here in Tampa.
February 9th, 2023 at 12:11 pm
The Eagles had the mindset to admit a mistake…..Licht won’t ever admit he’s overpaid any player nor will he trade aging vets for draft capital. Good organizations make bold moves, Licht lets all our young talent walk and hangs on to overpaid vets. That’s why we’re in the predicament we’re in…..Jensen, Smith, Evans, Godwin, all have value in trade and free up tremendous cap space but we’ll hang on to them to go 8-9 or worse. Licht is super mediocre as a GM. He got lucky that Winston was at the end of his rookie deal and Brady wanted to come here. With Brady gone, there’s no more players on discount trying to win a championship. It’s back to the roster Licht built with blown draft capital for nearly a decade.
February 9th, 2023 at 12:11 pm
Lol
Free beer tomorrow
Git your tickets here !
This town deserves new Buccaneer ownership
February 9th, 2023 at 12:11 pm
I trust Jason Licht. He ain’t Bill Polian, but we could do worse than him. In other words, Licht’s a good, not great General Manager
February 9th, 2023 at 12:18 pm
One thing is a little different here, the Eagles hired a new coach and staff when the two years started. We have got Todd Bowles and. missing almost half a staff whole different situation.
February 9th, 2023 at 12:23 pm
Have we hired an OC yet?
February 9th, 2023 at 12:28 pm
I’m getting more and more intrigued by the quarterback, Hendon hooker! I would love to see what type of chip he plays with especially being drafted late. I’d love to grab him in the 3rd or second round…as much as i hate to say but maybe draft an o lineman in the first round
February 9th, 2023 at 12:48 pm
“Winning only 2 years away”
It depends on a few factors.
#1 – Timing – If they start the rebuild now instead of spending a bunch more money on the salary cap credit card just to field a 6 or 7 win team – than maybe within a few years they might be a solid team again.
#2 – Coaching – Who is going to be the OC? What type of offense are you going to match with Bowles defense. Will we ever have a decent special teams coach? Will Bowles be fired after next season?
#3 – Who will be the QB? Will we find our franchise QB in the 2024 draft? Or will we continue to hire mediocre free agents who have been fired already and won’t win more than 6-7 games per season (Baker, Carr, Brissett, Bridgewater, etc).
#4 – The GM – is Jason Licht capable of rebuilding this roster? Finding a franchise QB? Drafting well enough to fill the giant voids currently left by free agency? Will our GM be wise enough to use 2023 to improve our salary cap situation? Or will he continue kicking the can down the road just to field a mediocre (at best) team?
The Eagles won a Super Bowl in 2018. Torn it all down – fired their head coach and they are in another SB in 2023. It took them 5 years. It will probably take the Bucs at least that long – especially if they don’t start the rebuild now.
February 9th, 2023 at 12:49 pm
Saints salary cap only somewhat bad this year. The Saints are in ridiculous salary cap hell next year.
February 9th, 2023 at 1:14 pm
If anyone cares to remember, Licht was in real trouble here in Tampa, until he pulled Bruce Arians out of his Hat.
Then, he got lucky, and landed Brady, only because the 49ers turned him down.
Light got even more luck when Tristan Wirfs for some unknown reason, fell to us in the draft.
Goedeke has been a real disappointment, and Trask seem to be unable to neat out Gabbert, not what you expect from a player you spend a second round pick on.
I noticed a BIG Improvement in our drafts when Arians and his bunch arrived, so lets hope it continues.
Jason Licht can not afford to get THIS Draft wrong, and must find some later round gems to keep us competitive
February 9th, 2023 at 1:18 pm
@ Chris@Apple Roof Cleaning Tampa
How quickly they forget.
February 9th, 2023 at 1:32 pm
I love the Eagles’ example.
Sitting on the outside looking in, I am at odds with the apparent direction our Bucs are taking. My choice would be rebuild for the future rather than retool for this year. We should implement a two year plan of our own.
This flies in the face of the win now mode. If we did what I want, many fans as well as the pundits would be outraged. Rather than tank we should merely concede that retooling this year will not bring a realistic Super Bowl run. Do phase one of a true rebuild for longer term success. (Consider drafting another young potential talent such as Tennessee quarterback Horton Hooker for example.)
Next year we will have far fewer holes. We will be out of “cap hell” also.
February 9th, 2023 at 1:52 pm
Two years ? They maybe able to spend in two years, but you need the QB. They don’t have one. Chris is right. We got lucky with Brady. Absolutely no way we win the superbowl without him. I think Licht is a good, not great GM. It’s easy to build a team with a pile of top round picks. All that was missing was the QB. IMO unless they find a gem at QB, we are dead. The eagles have the best roster in football.
February 9th, 2023 at 1:54 pm
Ronde Barber
As
Buccaneers
GM
!
February 9th, 2023 at 1:55 pm
JimboBucsFan … ‘My choice would be rebuild for the future rather than retool for this year. We should implement a two year plan of our own.’
I know Bowles has talked about ‘retooling’, but the reality is that (1) we’ve lost our starting QB; (2) we have 25 free agents from last season’s roster; (3) we finished 8-9 last season & need some obvious changes; and (4) we’re in real salary CAP hell (as in MINUS $55.7 mil to START). This ain’t no ‘retooling’; there’s a ‘major rebuilding’ coming. They can call it whatever they want though.
February 9th, 2023 at 2:09 pm
Well….I don’t hear any clamoring for Rock Star,, Mark Dominick to return…..
The problem is Bowles……he will hardly be on board with a tear-down…..
Some of this will happen naturally…..we’ll get younger…..Brady (already gone) Rudolph, Julio, Bernard, Brate, Hicks, Ryan & Maybe Gholston & LVD will not be signed.
That’s getting a lot younger
We could get cheaper with Gabbert/Trask……drafting replacements for Dean & LVD……cutting Smith….and maybe a trade.
So, much of this will happen without Bowles sanctioning it.
February 9th, 2023 at 2:12 pm
winning in 2 years????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Our economy is in great shape, the border is closed, eggs are 99 cents, Cackling [Not cool. — Joe] has done a fantastic fixing the Border and BIDEN GOT 80 million votes. Super Bowl 69 HERE COMES DA BUCS
February 9th, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Marine Buc … ‘It will probably take the Bucs at least that long (5 years like the Eagles) – especially if they don’t start the rebuild now.’
Excellent analysis, and I totally agree with you about the 5 years. Bucs have ‘voided’ so many contracts that we won’t dig out until 2027 … ASSUMING we stop kicking the can down the street most likely that’d be a very bad assumption). Just in voided contracts, we’re ALREADY committed to $56.7 mil in 2024, $47.3 mil in 2025 and $18.3 mil in 2026. That’s in addition to cleaning up our 2023 salary CAP mess of $52.7 mil due for voided contracts to Brady, LVD, Hicks, Julio & Gholston. Add just those 4 years ‘voided contracts’ charges together, and it amounts to an incredible $175 million. JL kicked a LOT OF CANS down the street … and we just ran out of street.
Yes the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2017 with a 13-3 regular season with a team QBd by Wentz & Foles. That TEAM had the #3-ranked offense & the #4-ranked defense (so their QBs were pretty well supported). But then the rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say …
o The 2018 Eagles finished 9-7 with the same Wentz & Foles. That team had some significant personnel changes, and had the #18 offense & #12 defense. They did make the playoffs as a wildcard, and won 1 playoff game.
o The 2019 Eagles also finished 9-7 with Wentz as their QB. Their offense ranked #12 & their defense ranked #15. Made the playoffs as a wildcard again, but lost.
o The 2020 Eagles weren’t so lucky, as they finished 4-11-1 with Wentz as their QB for about 2/3rds of the season, then Hurts. Cost Doug Pederson his job (I personally think he’s a very good HC BTW).
o The 2021 Eagles improved to 9-8 with new HC Nick Sirianni (an offensive coach like Pederson was). Jalen Hurts QBd the team for all but 1 game. They had the #12 offense but the #18 defense. Made the playoffs as a wildcard, but then our Bucs thumped them 31-15.
o The 2022 Eagles improved to 14-3 with Hurts as the QB for 15 games (14-1) and Minshew for 2 games (0-2). They’ve absolutely rolled in the playoffs thus far; 38-7 win over the Giants and a 31-7 win over the 49ers.
But what should be interesting to us in terms of lessons learned is that they finished 2020 with the 6th BEST salary CAP position, finished 2021 with the 2nd BEST salary CAP position, and 2022 with the 9th BEST salary CAP position. IOW, they didn’t mortgage the family farm to rebuild. Bucs can’t say the same.
February 9th, 2023 at 3:13 pm
It’s a simple formula: top-tier QB = contender. Everyone else is in the “other” category.
February 9th, 2023 at 3:23 pm
Trask is the secret weapon for 2023.
February 9th, 2023 at 3:26 pm
Quarterback, Left Tackle and Pass Rusher?
At this point the Bucs are 0-3 on that scenario
February 9th, 2023 at 3:58 pm
My strategy for this year would be disciplined by the two year plan. Everything we do would be determined by the idea of “best man available” for any position at the time no matter how we get them. This would apply to any possible trades, free agent acquisitions, draft picks or retaining our own free agents. This is a way of upping our overall odds of success.
Next year because we would have the smaller number of real need we could focus on them much better. I assume of course that it would make it easier for us to do that because we would be in solid shape as a result of this year’s decisions.
February 9th, 2023 at 4:03 pm
@Marine Buc… yes 5 years between Super Bowls but the went to the playoffs in 2018 and 2019 after winning the Super Bowl then tore it down and went 4-12 in 2020 then back to the playoofs in 2021 and now the super bowl… I’d say Winning only one year away for them.
February 9th, 2023 at 4:04 pm
Tear it all down and be ready for a playoff push in 2024
February 9th, 2023 at 4:08 pm
Redeemer, I do think that the stars were aligned or the football gods smiled down upon us a few years ago, if you will. First we lured Bruce Arians out of retirement. He laid the foundation. Second, Tom Brady looked around and found a good place to land after his stint in New England.
Who woulda thunk back then? Timing is everything it seems.
February 9th, 2023 at 7:13 pm
Yep get rid of the old pro;s and start over in a yer or 2 minus Coach Bozo, The Black Cloud hanging over Raty Jay
February 9th, 2023 at 8:02 pm
We can get Bobby Bouche to play the foosball for us. Mayb wecan go to the Bourbon Bowl.
February 9th, 2023 at 8:53 pm
LMAO! Goooo Yucs! 10 + years of misery is upon us!
February 10th, 2023 at 1:20 am
Quarterback. Pass Rusher. Left Tackle.
He have half of one of those…