Lavonte David is the second domino to fall for the Buccaneers this offseason.
The Buccaneers are officially not losing their captain. Lavonte David is staying put in Tampa as he should, and the Hall of Fame/Ring of Honor career continues where it began.
While we would all like to pretend that this has always been a foregone conclusion, most front offices across the NFL would not have been able to pull this off. After franchise tagging Chris Godwin and with a limited salary cap, the Buccaneers were up against the wall, but Mike Greenberg and Jacqueline Davidson are far from ordinary front office members.
Greenberg and Davidson are two of the best in the league at the business of football, and without them, the Bucs could have easily lost one of the best players in franchise history.
Lavonte David is here to stay with the Buccaneers
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Even with the limited money and the problematic wall to scale to make this deal happen, the Bucs were not only able to bring David back for two more years, but they did so with one of the most unique formats in league history.
While David is technically making $12.5 million per year for the next two seasons, the Buccaneers were able to cut that number down to a fraction by using a large signing bonus, a hefty chunk of guaranteed money, and three void years to spread out the cost according to Jenna Laine on Twitter.
Laine goes on to mention that by using this strategy, David is only on the books for $3.5 million in 2021. Huh?
So now, the Buccaneers are coming off a Super Bowl win, they have two WR1s, players across the league want to join the defending champs, and they are paying a top-20 player in the league $3.5 million in 2021 for salary cap purposes.
If the Buccaneer front office hadn’t proven that it was the best in the league over the past few years with stellar player decisions from the draft to free agency, the management of the cap has been nothing short of spectacular.
Tampa Bay has not mortgaged its future one bit with this deal, and as long as Shaquil Barrett is brought back as well, this free agency period will be one of the most successful for any team in recent years.
For now, let’s just take a moment to appreciate the fact that this front office is continuing to make moves that others couldn’t dream of, and that is giving us at least two more years of Lavonte David in pewter and red.
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