As of a week ago, the Bucs were set to be about $6 million under the salary cap as the 2025 league year began on Wednesday.
But over this past week, they made several moves that will cost money against the salary cap. They signed external free agents Haason Reddick, Riley Dixon, Kindle Vildor, Charlie Heck and Anthony Walker. They also re-signed internal free agents Kyle Trask, Anthony Nelson, Greg Gaines and Ben Bredeson.
All of these moves require salary cap space. It makes sense that the team would restructure existing contracts to create that room. And now, according to Greg Auman of Fox Sports, they have done that with the most likely candidate.
Bucs have restructured the contract of tackle Tristan Wirfs to create cap space — $26 million base salary converted to $1.17 million and bonus (pro-rated over five years) so that creates $19.86 million in new cap space, more than covering the team’s initial wave of signings.
— Greg Auman (@gregauman) March 14, 2025
That one restructure should pay for most of the aforementioned moves. Tristan Wirfs was the best option for this move for several reasons.
He is coming off of an excellent season, pointing to his play justifying higher cap hits in the future. He also just finished the final year of his rookie deal and is only now entering the first year of his five-year extension. And so, this restructure will only push the accounting for this amount through the actual life of the deal. There is no dead money associated with this move as long as Wirfs plays out the entire contract.
And at $26 million, his base salary was the second-largest on the team behind only quarterback Baker Mayfield, meaning it provided the second most cap savings. Other candidates for this restructure included Mayfield, Mike Evans, Vita Vea and Antoine Winfield Jr.
With the exception of Mayfield, the team would not have been able to open up as much room and with all of these moves. And in a max restructure format, all four of these contracts would have meant creating void years and dead cap down the line. Wirfs presented the perfect blend of space and length of deal.
We don’t have all of the details for every one of the signings so far. But here is what we do know. The Reddick deal is for one year and $14 million. Not all $14 million has to be accounted for, as $2,000,000 of it is tied to per game roster bonuses.
Since Reddick only played 10 games last year, 7/17 of that $2 million, or $823,529, is considered not likely to be earned and is exempt from this year’s cap calculation. As such, Reddick’s cap number for 2025 is $13,176,471.
Bredeson’s contract is for $22 million over three years. The Bucs are paying him $2 million in base salary plus a $5,500,000 million roster bonus this year. The roster bonus is prorated over five years, meaning only $1,100,000 of it is applied to this year’s salary cap. That makes Bredeson a $3,100,000 million cap hit this year.
Nelson will count $5.5 million against the cap this year as part of his two-year, $10 million pact. Greg Gaines’ cap hit for his one-year deal will be fully accounted for at $3.5 million.
The Bucs are taking advantage of some special provisions in the NFL-NFLPA collective bargaining agreement with respect to Trask and Vildor. Vildor was signed under the veteran salary benefit rule. Tampa Bay will pay him $1,337,500 but only have to account for $1,197,500 of it on the salary cap as if he only has two accrued seasons when he actually has six.
Similarly, Trask will be paid $2,787,000 this year, but the Bucs will only be charged $1,337,500 on the salary cap as his deal is being executed as a four-year player qualifying contract.
Dixon’s deal is for two years and $6 million. We don’t have the details of the structure yet, but let’s assume the Bucs want to account for it on a fairly straightforward basis with even cap hits of $3 million in each year. The terms of Heck and Walkers’ deals have not been announced yet, but it’s safe to say both will be for a single year and less than $2 million.
The grand total of these salary cap charges comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million-$31 million. Wirfs’ restructure covers about two-thirds of that total. And again, the team had about $6 million in space to begin with. Where did the rest come from?
Prior to the new league year commencing this past Wednesday, the Bucs came to terms with Chris Godwin on a three-year contract extension.
After pushing back the voiding of his previous contract to the start of the new league year, this deal meant the $18,852,000 in dead salary cap the team was set to take on was once again prorated across the 2025, 2026 and 2027 seasons. This pushed $11,318,000 of it off of the 2025 books. If the new deal is structured like the previous one, which I think it will be, the new cap charges for 2025 will only be about $5,500,000, saving the team a total of $5,818,000 in salary cap to help make up the difference for the new additions.
I predict Godwin’s total cap charge for 2025 will be $13,034,000. He will also have cap hits of $33,659,000 in 2026 and $29,909,000 in 2027 with a dead cap charge of $8,250,000 in 2028.
As for Wirfs, this move will change his cap number for every remaining year of his deal. The 2025 number will drop from $31,362,582 to $11,498,582. His cap hits in 2026 through 2029 will each raise by $4,966,000 to:
2026 – $36,328, 582
2027 – $36,328,586
2028 – $36,566,000
2029 – $32,991,000
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Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Moon just made headlines during a recent appearance on "Up Adams," where he gave his take on one of the NFL’s most debated questions. When asked which star quarterback will win a Super Bowl first, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen or Joe Burrow, Moon without any hesitation went with Jackson. “We have Josh Allen, MVP, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, they wrecked the league last year… Which one of those three do you think has the best shot to get one this year?” Kay Adams asked. Moon responded, “I think Lamar.” Moon’s reasoning for this take was not due to stats or accolades, because both have great numbers and awards, rather Moon was focused on the surrounding cast around Jackson. While he was complimentary of Allen and the team around him, he emphasized that the Ravens had a strong secondary, incredible running back and solid wideouts that could allow them to be a serious threat to win it all. It is easy to see why Moon made his opinion clear and without hesitation. Jackson is one of the top quarterbacks in the league, with four Pro Bowl nods, three All-Pro selections and two MVP awards. He is the best dual-threat quarterback in the world, and now with an incredible roster around him, Jackson has become much scarier. However, pressure is mounting on the superstar QB, and Moon did make the case for Allen to also potentially win first. “Josh Allen, they’ll be right there too. I think it depends on who plays who in the playoffs … You have to go through playing both Kansas City and Baltimore if you’re Buffalo, and same thing if you’re the Ravens, you gotta play both of those to get to the Super Bowl … But if you only have to play one of them, that would be great.” Allen is also regarded as one of the league’s best QBs too, and Moon's argument has a lot of merit to it. Both Buffalo and Baltimore are flooded with talented pieces that are hungry to make that Super Bowl run. It could come down to matchups come playoff time. If one squad has an easier route to the AFC Championship game, then it might be the one who ultimately comes out on top. As for Burrow, Moon did not mention him in the conversation, but clearly it was not meant to be a slight on him as a player. Rather, for obvious reasons, it seems that Moon might have Baltimore and Buffalo as overall rosters in a higher tier from Cincinnati. Ultimately however, time will tell who breaks first. But if Moon is correct, Jackson might finally be able to silence his critics, and make his mark on NFL history.
Caitlin Clark might be the most popular figure in women's basketball right now, but she continues to draw shots left and right, both on and off the court. The Iowa product has stayed even keeled and mostly unrattled, but that doesn't mean she won't fight back. That's why, in the light of Kelsey Plum's recent comments, she decided to take matters into her own hands and clapped back at her with a simple, six-word message. Plum shared a picture of her during the WNBA's All-Star Weekend, which showed half of a Nike logo in the background. Clark was quick to spot it and just wrote "Thank u for the Nike ad." This happened just hours after Plum seemingly took a shot at Clark and her Team Clark teammates for reportedly not getting involved in their pre-game protest. “The T-shirt was determined this morning. Not to tattletale, but zero members of Team Clark were very present for that,” Plum revealed. “That really needed to be mentioned,” Sabrina Ionescu added while both laughed. WNBA All-Stars warmed up with a T-Shirt that read 'Pay us what you owe us,' ahead of their new CBA agreement, which is expected to be signed in the offseason. WNBA players get around 9 percent of the league's revenue, and they're asking for a bigger share since most of them also have to play overseas during the offseason because of the salary disparity. Plum is the vice president of the WNBPA, so it's not surprising to see her so involved in the protest and the demands. Then again, it's hard to understand the reasoning behind the tattle telling, as not only does it show that there might not be a united front ahead of these negotiations, but it also drives attention away from where it should be.
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