Buccaneers not worried about salary cap beyond 2021

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have done well to "keep the band together" following their Super Bowl LV triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs by agreeing to deals with core players that include voidable years, per Kevin Patra of the NFL's website. Some have wondered if Tampa Bay pushing salary-cap hits past the 2021 season will ultimately come back to harm the franchise, but general manager Jason Licht didn't seem too concerned when speaking with reporters on Thursday. 

"There are some corrections that are going to have to take place at some point down the road, but we're not putting ourselves in a position where next year we have to release a lot of good players," Licht explained. "We're going to be in good shape if we continue to just make sure that we make smart decisions and we do things right. We're going to be competing for years to come."

Licht also spoke about the practice of adding void years to contracts. 

"That's been something that's been done for a long time with different teams, and you see it too this year," he said. "A lot of teams are using it this year. It's something that we've talked about for a few years here in terms of our cap situation, our future cap situation, the way we've done contracts. We've said if we ever get to a point where we have a really good team, an excellent team like we have, and we need to start doing this, using the voidable years and kicking it down the road a little bit, then we would. We were in a position where we were able to do it this year."

The NFL salary cap is dropping nearly $16 million from the previous year after the league reportedly lost $4 billion in revenue during the 2020 campaign held amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the league recently agreed to new media rights deals that will earn it $10 billion annually through the 2033 campaign, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said on Tuesday he's hopeful stadiums will be filled to capacities starting in September. Those developments should lead to large salary-cap increases beginning in 2022. 

Licht also said that seven-time champion quarterback Tom Brady is recovering "very well" from offseason knee surgery.