How is our salary cap after re-signing Chris, Lavonte and Ben?

It's tight, but it was pretty tight before all of those moves.

Here's the thing: Often, a new contract for a player will actually reduce his cap hit for the upcoming season. That was the case, for instance, with Chris Godwin. His previous contract, signed in 2022 and technically running through 2024, had three automatic voiding years on the end of it. Those were originally included to spread out the cap hit over six years rather than three on that 2022 deal. The thing is, if Godwin's deal had voided the part of the cap hit that were on those void years from 2025-27 would have accelerated to this year and would have resulted in a "dead cap" charger of about $19 million. In other words, had Godwin hit free agency and signed with another team, the Bucs would be devoting $19 million of their cap space in 2025 to a player no longer on the team. That's not great, of course, but it's a pretty common thing around the NFL, highlighted in the most extreme way when a team decides to move away from a big contract given to a quarterback, like the Broncos did with Russell Wilson last year.

Now, Godwin's new contract replaces those 2025-27 void years in his old one. According to Spotrac, Godwin's cap hit this year is just under $13 million (it jumps up to nearly $34 million in 2026). Those two years are fully guaranteed. Godwin's base salary this year is league minimum, but a prorated version of his signing bonus and a restructure proration are added to get to that $13 million.

Lavonte David and Ben Bredeson both played the 2024 season on one-year contracts with no void years, so there's no similar gain on the 2025 cap to be found with their new deals. David once again signed a one-year deal, so his cap hit is a pretty straightforward $9 million (again, all of these numbers according to Spotrac). Bredeson got a three year deal with no guaranteed money in the third year and a 2025 cap hit of $7.5 million.

After these moves and a few others, Spotrac has the Bucs with essentially no cap room. But wait, don't the Bucs have some more moves they have to make, including creating enough cap space to account for the estimated salaries of their draft picks? Why yes, they do. In fact, I'm writing this on Wednesday, before linebacker Anthony Walker, cornerback Bryce Hall and wide receiver Sterling Shepard all officially signed the deals they agreed to last week.

The answer is that every team is skilled in creating cap space when necessary. Primarily that is done through restructuring existing contracts for other players on the team so that their cap hit for the current year is reduced. This mostly consists of converting base salary into a signing bonus, which spreads out that converted amount of salary over the reminder of the contract.

So, I guess the simplified answer to your question, Jason, is the Bucs currently have very little wiggle room under the 2025 cap, but space can be created if needed. That said, I don't think there's a whole lot left on the Bucs' shopping list before next month's draft.

I feel like being able to restructure contracts essentially makes the salary cap non-existent. Are there any real downsides to restructuring contracts?

A lot of people feel the same way you do, and it's hard to blame them. The salary cap is definitely not non-existent, but there are so many workarounds that it's hard to take it seriously when you're told a team is in "cap hell" and will be very restricted in its movements.

I feel like we've been waiting for that to be the case for the New Orleans Saints, who have seemingly been the most aggressive team in terms of kicking that can. Before they started restructuring contracts this offseason, the Saints were estimated to be around $50 million over the 2025 cap. They had to clear up that deficit and be compliant with the cap just to start free agency…and yet they not only were able to re-sign edge rusher Chase Young and tight end Juwan Johnson but were also able to bring in safety Justin Reid on a pretty sizeable deal.

The main reason that this type of strategy, which is used to some degree by almost all the teams, continues to work without that "time to pay the piper" moment, is that the salary cap continues to go up at a very aggressive rate. That's the byproduct of ever-increasing league revenue mostly generated by new deals with broadcast partners. After a COVID-related dip in the salary cap from 2020 to 2021, it has gone up precipitously; in the last four years, the cap has increased by a total of a whopping $96.7 million. Compare that to the overall increase from $77.825 million in a dozen years from 2009 through 2020.

You might find some negatives to a super-aggressive approach of deferring cap hits down the road if you look around the margins. Would the Saints like to have kept cornerback Paulson Adebo this year? Maybe, but they didn't have much shot at matching the lucrative deal he signed with the New York Giants. In 2023, the Saints lost DTs David Onyemata and Shy Tuttle, defensive end Marcus Davenport, linebacker Kaden Ellis, and wide receiver/kick returner Deonte Harty to free agency. You are I can't know if they wanted to keep any or all of those players, but it's certainly they did but were unable to do so.

What was your favorite free agency move outside of the Bucs?

Can I make it a two-fer? Because I really like the duo that Sean Payton's Denver Broncos lifted from a San Francisco 49ers defense that was among the league's best just a few years ago. That would be linebacker Dre Greenlaw and safety Talanoa Hufanga.

I hate to say it, given how Payton's Saints gave the Bucs fits for so many years, but it seems like they are ahead of schedule heading into his third year at the helm. The Broncos drafted and started a rookie quarterback, which isn't generally the formula that leads to a playoff season, but make the postseason they did. The playoff run didn't last long – they had to go to Buffalo in the opening round and ran into a buzzsaw – but the future definitely looks bright. Payton appears to have found his next long-term quarterback partner in Bo Nix and the Saints have an excellent chance to beef up the weapons around him in this year's draft. They already added tight end Evan Engram to be Payton's "joker," and according to Pro Football Network they had the top-performing offensive line in the league last year. (The Bucs were third.)

Now, the Broncos defense, coordinated by Vance Joseph, was already pretty good in 2024, ranking seventh in total yards, third in rushing yards and third in points allowed. Now I think that unit has gotten significantly better. Greenlaw steps into the lineup to replace Cody Barton, who left for Tennessee in free agency. Barton's a fine player but I think Greenlaw is a significant upgrade. In Pro Football Focus' list of top 200 2025 free agents, Greenlaw ranked 21st and Barton 143rd.

The tricky part with Greenlaw, of course, is that he barely played in 2024 after rupturing an Achilles tendon in Super Bowl LVIII. He actually looked pretty good in the 34 defensive snaps he did command late last season, but that's obviously a very small sample size. If he is back to his pre-injury form – and given that when Brianna Dix and I debated which "dream" free agency addition we would love for the Bucs, I chose Greenlaw, it's obvious I'm betting he will be – he should make a huge impact on the Broncos' defense. Greenlaw is an excellent coverage linebacker, and that's not an easy skill to find.