Updated list of Tampa Bay Buccaneers draft picks after Shaq Mason trade

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers traded Shaq Mason to the Houston Texans, and here’s an updated look at their list of NFL Draft picks now. 

Well, it’s been quite a start to the offseason for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

It first appeared as though the team wouldn’t be big players in free agency, thanks in large part to a prickly salary cap situation. Tampa Bay needed to shed over $50 million to get back under the cap as well as juggle how it wanted to proceed into the choppy waters of the post-Tom Brady era.

Fans were preparing for a dark offseason, as the bill for the last three years had come due and the price was already adding up. Leonard Fournette, Cameron Brate, and Donovan Smith were all cut loose and the team was priced out of the Derek Carr chase.

Just when things seemed the grimmest, Jason Licht and company ripped off the curtains and let the light shine in. Tampa Bay made the stunning move to re-sign Jamel Dean to a four-year, $52 million contract and is already eyeing a couple of veteran quarterbacks to bring in and compete with Kyle Trask. 

The Bucs also traded starting right guard Shaq Mason to the Houston Texans, freeing up more money and moving the team up in the NFL Draft order. It wasn’t a huge trade, but the Bucs saved around $5 million and swapped a seventh-round pick for a high sixth-rounder. The deal basically makes Mason a one-year rental in which the team only fell nine spots in the draft over (Tampa traded Pick 170 to New England for Mason, and Houston traded Pick 179 this year).

Free agency spending will still be curbed, but the Bucs bringing back Dean makes looking ahead to the NFL Draft a bit more exciting than it was. Rather than looking at the No. 19 pick as one in which Dean needs to be replaced by a top rookie corner, Tampa Bay has more flexibility.

That’s something that extends throughout its draft class this year.

Updated Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL Draft picks after Shaq Mason trade

Let’s do a little draft pick tracking before we go over what the current haul looks like. The Bucs now own two picks that belonged to other teams, one being the pick from Houston and the other being a sixth-round pick from Indianapolis.

That Colts pick came to the Bucs by way of the Grant Stuard trade last August. In that deal, Tampa Bay shipped Stuard and its original seventh-round pick to Indy for what ended up being the 181st pick in this year’s draft.

Tampa Bay’s pick ended up being the 236th pick, but it received the 252nd pick as compensation for losing O.J. Howard last year. So, essentially, the Bucs didn’t really lose a seventh-round pick in that trade since they got one back this year anyway.

What a fascinating wormhole to get sucked into.

Here’s an updated look at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers draft picks after the Shaq Mason trade:

• Round One, Pick 19, 19th Overall
• Round Two, Pick 19, 50th Overall
• Round Three, Pick 19, 82nd Overall
• Round Five, Pick 19, 153rd Overall
• Round Five, Pick 41, 175th Overall (Comp. Pick)
• Round Six, Pick 4, 179th Overall (From Houston Texans)
• Round Six, Pick 4, 181st Overall (From Indianapolis Colts)
• Round Six, Pick 19, 196th Overall
• Round Seven, Pick 35, 252nd Overall (Comp. Pick)

If those picks look slightly different than what they were right after the season, it’s because they are (trade aside). The aforementioned Houston Texans lost a draft pick this year after the NFL penalized the team over a salary cap violation.

The league took away Pick 137 from Houston, which was the second pick in the fifth round.

Here’s another fun fact: if Tampa Bay hangs onto all of its picks, it will be the largest draft class since 2010. That class hasn’t aged particularly well, but it did produce Gerald McCoy with the No. 3 overall pick, even if the rest of the class was filled out with guys like Mike Williams, Arrelious Benn, and Brian Price — all of whom never really panned out during the Dark Ages of the 2010s.