5-year extension puts Marpet 7th on guards salary list

TAMPA — After only one season at center, Ali Marpet was summoned to One Buc Place last spring and told the team planned to recruit a free agent player at his position.

Marpet could have made a fuss. Instead, he made plans to have a recruiting dinner with Ravens free agent center Ryan Jensen.

“If it helps our team, I’m all for it,” Marpet said at the time. “And I think it helps our team.”

Jensen would end up signing with the Bucs and Marpet moved to left guard, his third position in four years.

But his unselfishness and versatility were rewarded Tuesday when Marpet signed a five-year contract extension worth $10.825 million per season. The deal includes $26.8 million in guarantees.

The deal makes Marpet, 25, the seventh-highest paid guard in the NFL in terms of average salary and the third-highest at left guard behind the Jaguars Andrew Norwell ($13.3 million) and the Raiders Kelechi Osemele ($11.7 million).

Marpet is one of the great finds by the Bucs, a Division III player from tiny Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y.

He has started 44 games, at three different positions, since being selected in the second round of the 2015 draft.

The 6-foot-4, 307-pound Marpet also has played right guard and center. He was moved to left guard this season with the signing of Jensen.

The Bucs traded up in the second-round in 2015 to draft Marpet, who was a relative unknown except in some NFL circles until he became the first Division III player picked to play in the 2015 Senior Bowl.

Athletic. Strong. Consistent. Those were the adjectives used by the Bucs to describe Marpet.

It was the same draft that the Bucs took quarterback Jameis Winston No. 1 overall and used another second-round pick on Penn State left tackle Donovan Smith.

Having never missed a start in 52 games, Smith is also in position for a contract extension and will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of 2018.

The Bucs also have met with Drew Rosenhaus, the agent for middle linebacker Kwon Alexander, who is also in line for a new deal.

CHRIS O'MEARA/AP Ryan Marpet, who has started 44 games at three different positions since being drafted in 2015, is now the seventhhighest-paid guard in the NFL in terms of average salary and the third-highest-paid left guard.