Buccaneers: What’s going to happen with Ndamukong Suh?

With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers expected to bring in QB Tom Brady, will the organization make the decision to move away from Ndamukong Suh?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have made several big splashes as we head into the official portion of free-agency.

The Buccaneers retained EDGE-rusher Shaquil Barrett using the franchise tag. Following the decision to bring Barrett back on the tag, Tampa Bay announced a two-year, $27 million deal with incentives for Jason Pierre-Paul.

The latest move for the Buccaneers was the reported deal in principal that will send six-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady to Tampa Bay on a contract that is worth roughly $30 million per year.

Though Tampa Bay has been one of the major winners of free-agency so far, the Buccaneers are reportedly tied to several other big names and aren’t close to being done.

The Buccaneers have been linked to becoming a potential trade partner with the Los Angeles Rams to get RB Todd Gurley. They’ve also been linked to names like Antonio Brown and Melvin Gordon in free-agency.

While several keep up with the big names, one of the most intriguing names left for the Buccaneers in free-agency is DT Ndamukong Suh.

Other than LB Carl Nassib– who signed a deal with the Raiders- Suh is the last big name along that front-seven for Tampa Bay. Buccaneers Coach Bruce Arians made it very clear that he wanted to retain as much of that front-seven as possible and Suh was considered the third-most prioritized piece- right behind Barrett and Pierre-Paul.

Doing simple math, one can see what’s going into this decision for Tampa.

The Bucs had around $84 million in cap space:

• They signed Barrett to franchise tag, worth around $19 million.
• They signed Pierre-Paul, which will have a cap hit of around $12.5 million.
• If Brady’s reported deal is correct, that will be a hit of $30 million.
• You have to add about $8 million for rookies through the draft.

Keep in mind, these are estimated numbers and could potentially change depending on how deals are structured, etc. For those playing along at home, though, that will give the Buccaneers around $14.5 million after adding the rookies to work with.

That means the organization could certainly bring Suh back on a deal similar to what he had last year (around $9 million) and they’d still have about $5 million to spare. Tampa Bay could also potentially offer Suh a two-year extension for less money per year to save room.

Will the Buccaneers bring back Ndamukong Suh? That remains to be seen.

They’ll certainly have to make some major decisions and will have to truly decide if he is a priority. Keeping that defensive line together has been a major talking point of Arians throughout the offseason, so it certainly wouldn’t be surprising to see Tampa move away from some of the ‘shiny’ offensive names in free-agency and bring Suh back.