Bleacher Report lists Buccaneers most overpaid player, and it's not a huge surprise

For as much that went right last year for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, plenty of things went just wrong enough to hold the team back.

Everyone will rightfully remember how the season ended in the NFC Divisional Round, despite preseason predictions that the Bucs would have a Top 3 draft pick. That's overlooking the 1-6 slump the team fell into earlier in the season, and it's within that brutal stretch that some of the blemishes on the season begin to show.

Most of the players who underperformed are gone, with Devin White being let go in free agency and Carlton Davis getting traded to Detroit. One player who let the team down is still on the roster and has a chance to make up for it next season.

He's going to need to, as he's not only one of the most expensive players on the roster but he's already getting called overpaid.

Jamel Dean listed as Buccaneers most overpaid player

Bleacher Report listed the most overpaid player on each NFL roster and listed Jamel Dean for the Buccaneers.

"The five-year veteran was frequently burned in coverage in 2023, and he isn't much of a playmaker (two interceptions total in the last two seasons). He's not living up to a four-year, $52 million contract," B/R wrote.

That's not exactly hard hitting analysis but he's also not wrong. It doesn't take that deep of a dive to see just how dissapointing Dean was last season and how much he let the team down.

More often than not Dean was either hurt or on the wrong side of some big plays last season -- or both. In Week 9 against Houston, Dean gave up a touchdown to Nico Collins and promptly left the game with an injury that held him out the rest of the way. The same thing happened two weeks later in San Francisco when he got cooked by Brandon Aiyuk and immedietly left the game with an injury.

He was even carted to the locker room during the Bucs playoff loss to Detroit, and was hobbled by injuries and poor play in a Week 3 loss to the Eagles.

Calling him overpaid seems a little harsh, but all of this bad play happened just months after the Bucs opened up the checkbook to bring him back. The Bucs were facing over $80 million in dead cap and had almost no money to spend which made it seem like a certainty that Dean would be gone.

Instead, the Bucs found a way to give him a $52 million contract, and he repaid them by becoming a total liability at times during the season. He's better than that, we've seen him play at a higher level before, and the pressure is on for him to get back to that level in 2024 or he might not be in the picture much longer than that.

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