Jason Licht Talks “Money Shifting”
April 2nd, 2023
Did the Bucs decide to invest more at cornerback than at offensive line?
Joe talked to general manager Jason Licht last week during a cozy sitdown at the Biltmore resort in Phoenix.
One subject was the re-signing of pending free agent cornerback Jamel Dean. The Bucs brought back their 2019 third-round pick hours before he hit the open market. Dean is no Pro Bowler, but he’s a great talent who continues to improve. He’s long, fast and certainly capable of covering superstar receivers.
Licht acknowledged that paying Dean the big money while fellow cornerback Carlton Davis has an ever fatter contract is outside the norm.
“He’s a really good player,” Licht said of Dean. “We feel the same way about Carlton [Davis], obviously. And we developed him; the coaches did a great job developing him. It’s hard to let a really good player walk out. And know it seems a little different having two high-priced corners but, you know, we don’t want a young, great talent to leave if we don’t have to. We just happened to have the money shifting a little bit that way from another area, and the pendulum can swing again at some point. But it’s just a great player. We didn’t want to let him go.”
Joe was intrigued when Licht talked about the money moving “from another area” to the defensive backfield.
Was he referring to quarterback or the offensive line, which lost Donovan Smith’s giant salary and Shaq Mason’s, which was around $8 million? At QB, of course, the Bucs aren’t spending much but Tom Brady is counting $35 million against the salary cap this season following accounting moves tied to keeping him on the roster last season.
Regardless, the Bucs are investing at cornerback in a big way. And next offseason, they’ll have to break the bank to keep Antoine Winfield, Jr., at safety.
Joe sure hopes the investments pay off, and Joe especially would love the Bucs secondary to terrorize the Panthers’ rookie quarterback this season.
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April 2nd, 2023 at 10:02 am
If you think about it, what the Bucs are spending to pay off Brady’s contract, combined with what Mayfield will make is what most teams are (or will be) paying for a starting QB. While we may or may not have one, the money is certainly not coming from there compared to other teams.
Add to that the exorbitant salaries we pay to WRs and now Corners and the money has to come from somewhere. Two places you can point to where the Bucs are clearly underspending is at RB and TE.
So, I’d say that haven’t necessarily taken it from the O-line or D-line, for that matter. In the future, though, they are going to need to cough up some Bucs to retain (or obtain) better players on both fronts. The only place they are going to be able to whittle down costs are at WR and Corner. Hopefully, the draft takes care of that in the next year or two.
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:11 am
Football is won in the trenches. Guess Light forgot about that, again.
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:19 am
I expect he intends to address that via the draft. The best fix for money problems in the NFL is having people on rookie contracts who can start
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:23 am
The problem is depth. Who can step in when the top players are hurt? Our bench last year was just awful.
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:26 am
Well Jeff I’d say he took a stupid gamble last year. STUPID NON MOVES after we lost Marpet and Jensen. He was forced to replace Cappa with Mason but kinda forgot about the rest of the line to what equaled two rookies in Hainsey and Geodonkey. Cost us Big Time!
We lost the ENTIRE run game ability and it cost us the greatest QB to ever play the game. If he would have at least found one more credible and fairly decent fill in besides clueless and out of position rookies,,,, well just maybe things would look much different than they do right now…..
I’m a Licht supporter. Simple as that. BUT…….. One of the biggest mistakes in his career he could have possibly made to not to have fixed the O line while he still could have. FOOLISH!
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:27 am
Shifting money around sensibly is something Licht is very good at. Getting free agents or trades signed as necessary at reasonable prices when the opportunity presents itself is also important.
However, teams have to draft well to play well on a sustained basis. That’s how to manage the salary cap and avoid overpaying individual players. Overall, Licht has done a good job on the draft for the last 6 years, which is how we won a Super Bowl and two NFC South Division championships over the last 3 seasons.
Nobody bats 1,000 on the draft … anything over .500 is pretty damned good.
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:38 am
LOL, with no pass rush, a team NEEDS great corners.
WE need to work on our pass rush, so we can get pressure w/o always blitzing.
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:38 am
This season is going to be interesting. We will see just how good Jason is at GM. Having virtually no money to spend. We will see what kind of product we get this year.
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:54 am
It will be interesting to see how and how much both Dean and Davis regress with only Winfield left, and you know who coiching. Others have said, could have kept SMB and Edwards and Neal for Dean’s contract.
So, again, Jason knows best and asked his head coich what he’d rather have. Head coich, after benching Dean for the slaughter against Dallas, says “Dean.”
Give head coich what head coich wants so head coich has no excuses and is easily terminated at any point.
Looking forward to see who the new head coach is for 2024.
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:00 am
Jeff yes football can be won in the trenches.
But there is not only one way to win in the NFL. If anything, the NFL has shown us there are lots of ways to win the Super Bowl. Tennessee never succeeded with way above average trenches recently. Neither has Pittsburgh or Baltimore in years.
If you have average trenches and a great quarterback and passing game, you got a shot (KC, Cincy, LA Rams, Buffalo, Tampa, etc). If you add to that a better than average set of defensive backs, it makes you much more likely to win.
To me, what the last 10 years has shown me is that you better be better than average on passing and better than average on stopping the pass. But there are other ways to win.
Jeff, I wish you well.
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:08 am
If Canales fixes the offence AND we have at least one good edge rusher (JTS or a draft pick…or Shaq) AND Baker or Trask play well… We will win the NFC South in spite of bowlzo.
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:18 am
My guess is that they decided to spend on other areas because they intend to address the two lines in the draft.
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:20 am
Goatfarmer Says
“Looking forward to see who the new head coach is for 2024.”
Bill Belichick 😉
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:29 am
It is way harder to replace a very good corner than a guard.
They had to keep Dean if they could and it was a great move.
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:42 am
Bucs still have major issues o-line, no pass rush, one safety and questions at QB that will only get worse with issues on the o-line. I don’t understand Licht we had issues with the o-line last year Jensen and Stinnie went down in preseason and Licht did not address it, we lost Smith and Mason and just relying on the draft is a gamble.
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:51 am
JL is the worst GM in the NFL. “Shifting” is code for borowing money from the next 4 years to pay for today. That was when he gets fired, the next GM will have to deal with it.
April 2nd, 2023 at 12:19 pm
Reality IMO is that Licht tried to go to the well one too many times. Getting lots of weapons for Brady in 2020 made perfect sense and paid off obviously. Keeping the band together in 2021 also paid off, and almost worked. But trying to do it a 3rd time in 2022 didn’t work at all, and not just because of injuries.
Losing Marpet to retirement obviously hurt early-on, but I think that not being able to re-sign Gronk hurt even more. not re-signing JPP, Suh, Whitehead & even McLendon all impacted us in various ways, but injuries to Jenson, Stinnie, Donnie Smith, Wirfs, Shaq, Hicks & various members of our Secondary kinda sealed the deal. The lack of DEPTH hurt us, but it did give some youngsters opportunities to get valuable playing time. We’ll see this year if it paid off.
April 2nd, 2023 at 1:01 pm
Above average players get paid above average salaries. The demand for their skills determines how large of a salary! You can always let the player walk. But that doesn’t help your team if you don’t have a replacement handy. The draft is a no guarantee thing. See our last couple first picks. Free agents don’t always pan out too. So all you can do is master manipulate to the best of your wallet. We won’t know if this preseason shuffle was good or bad until playoff time. Hope for the best and deal with the rest!
April 2nd, 2023 at 1:04 pm
I think we need get smart on how we off load Shaq Barrett money I honestly do think he’s got it in the tank anymore.
That money can secure wirf and Winfield..
Jensen will be expendable in near future to.
Money is allocated to the young n great..
Expect the bucs to find a qb next year..unless 1 of the 2 show promise
April 2nd, 2023 at 1:17 pm
Just pay close attention to your trenches Bucs. Fortify that O line for years to come. And pay attention to the D line. When you have a very good one, your back end can be quite average. Think about it.
April 2nd, 2023 at 1:54 pm
I THINK JASON LIGHT HAS DONE A MAGNIFICENT JOB WITH THE MOVES HE’S MADE SO FAR THIS OFF-SEASON ( ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING OUR LEAGUE WORST CAP SITUATION) OUR YOUNG BACKUP LINEMAN WERE FORCED TO START BECAUSE OF INJURIES &FREE AGENT SHIP-JUMPERS( & ONE RETIRING IN HIS PRIME )THESE LINEMAN GAINED VALUABLE EXPERIENCE THAT WILL ONLY HELP THEM THIS YEAR.,THAT BEING SAID WE NEED TO DRAFT A 1ST YEAR STARTER AT LEFT TACKLE (IF TRISTEN WIRFS REMAINS AT RIGHT TACKLE) A BIG RB LIKE B.ROBINSON WOULD BE A GOOD 1ST RD PICK FOR THE BUCS,BUT, SO WOULD BRIAN BRANCH AT SS , TYREE WILSON AT DE OR THE LEFT TACKLE OUT OF FLORIDA ( UNLESS BY SOME MIRACLE WE COULD TRADE UP & GET QB ANTHONY RICHARDSON WITH OUR 1ST PICK..( I BELIEVE HE IS THE BEST ATHLETE AT THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN THIS DRAFT)IF HE HAS TO SIT A YEAR TILL HE”S READY, SO BE IT..HE’LL BE AS GOOD OR BETTER THAN LAMAR JACKSON WHEN DOES GET ON THE FIELD, AFTER BEING COACHED UP A YEAR ( HE’S ONLY 20 YEARS OLD FOR HEAVEN SAKES)..I WOULD DO MY DAMNDEST TO MOVE UP & GRAB THIS FUTURE SUPERSTAR ! ! !
April 2nd, 2023 at 2:50 pm
Darnell Washington
Steve Avilla
Devon Achane
Mekhi Garner
….make the money work, make the trades work
There you go LUV, i did my job
April 2nd, 2023 at 5:52 pm
@obvious
You nailed it.
April 2nd, 2023 at 6:52 pm
You can draft guys on the offensive line that can play right away at a high level (Marpet, Wirfs, even Donovan played well for rookie). But rarely can you draft corners and plug them into a defense and expect anything but disaster, and they few guys that can play corner right away almost always are going to be drafted in the top 10. So if you’re trying to compete this year, you’re better spending money on corners, who take years to develop, as opposed to offensive lineman.
From Licht’s side, while he’s fantastic at finding offensive lineman, if you need guys to play right away, you generally want to draft guys from top tier schools. The exception to that, obviously, is Marpet who was a complete freak in workouts, which is why he went so high. Guys from smaller schools, like Luke, or guys who don’t post good workouts, like Cappa, generally need a year or so to get into NFL condition and to get used to playing against NFL talent.
April 2nd, 2023 at 11:43 pm
If the choice was between Dean and the o-line they made the right call