Buccaneers should never have re-signed this star player

While the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have generally done an impressive job of negotiating smart contracts with their players over the past few seasons which has resulted in a great deal of on-field success, it would appear the front office has finally slipped up in a major way re-signing wide receiver Chris Godwin.

With the new contract Godwin signed this year, he will now be occupying a considerable amount of cap space, especially for a wide receiver. This is money the Buccaneers could and absolutely should have used elsewhere to rebuild the team or go after a successor to Tom Brady after this year.

Now come next offseason, the Bucs are limited in their options for quarterback, offensive line, and any other far more important positions on a team than wide receiver.

Just to add insult to injury when examining the idiocy of this move, the Bucs already have a star receiver with a long-term contract in Mike Evans. So, there is absolutely no excuse for why the Bucs would think of doubling down on wide receivers when not long ago, the team was clueless as to who would be their starting quarterback, a far more integral position.

Despite the obvious reasoning that the Buccaneers simply shouldn’t have spent so much money on wide receiver contracts since no team has ever been built around a wide receiver and won a Super Bowl, what is probably the most damning argument for why the Bucs shouldn’t have re-signed Godwin is his inability to remain healthy through a whole season.

If you are going to pay any player over $20 million a year, let alone a wide receiver, they better be on the field every snap. Given his history, this will certainly not be the case with Godwin moving forward.

This means the Buccaneers will be spending a large part of their cap on a role player that in all likelihood will only play 10-12 games per season.

Chris Godwin is a very talented player and has been an exceptional member of the franchise both on and off the field in his time in Tampa Bay, but at the end of the day this is a business, and it was a poor business decision to re-sign him.