Decision has to be made with Barrett and Winston
TAMPA — The Bucs face a tough decision following the passage of a new labor agreement announced Sunday between the NFL and its players.
They can only use the franchise or transition tag on one player for 2020. Does it go to linebacker Shaquil Barrett or quarterback Jameis Winston?
Indications are that barring an agreement on a long-term contract extension, the Bucs will use the franchise player tag on Barrett, who led the NFL in sacks this past season with 19.5.
That means that Winston, the NFL’s passing leader with 5,109 yards and 33 touchdowns last season, could potentially enter the legal free-agent tampering period as early as Monday. The new league year and NFL free agency is set to begin at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Bucs coach Bruce Arians has been consistent in saying that Barrett would not be leaving the Bucs while calling Winston, who also led the NFL with 30 interceptions, “an unknown quantity.”
If Winston does not receive a franchise or transition player tag, it means the Bucs’ No. 1 overall pick in 2015 would be allowed to negotiate a contract with any team, including Tampa Bay, beginning at noon Monday.
In that scenario, the Bucs would move quickly to determine whether they could lure quarterback Tom Brady from the Patriots. If not, they will quickly pivot to other free-agent quarterbacks, beginning with the Saints’ Teddy Bridgewater and the Chargers’ Philip Rivers, in that order.
Winston will likely remain in the mix as well as he tries to determine whether a starting job exists for him with another team.
To use the franchise tag on Winston, the Bucs would have to guarantee him about $27 million on a one-year deal. He earned about $20.1 million in his fifth season with the Bucs in 2019.
A simple majority was needed for approval of the new labor agreement and it passed by a count of 1,019 to 959.
Had no new deal been reached, the league would have played under the rules of the final year of the collective bargaining agreement put in place in 2011. It would have allowed for teams to use both a franchise and a transition player tag on potential free agents.
But now that the league has a new collective bargaining agreement and labor peace through 2030, the NFL and its players may work to extend the start of free agency, according to multiple reports.
The NFL salary cap will be set at $198.2 million per team. The overall player costs per club is $242.9 million, which includes benefits and performance-based pay pool.
Prior to the agreement, the Bucs had nearly $80 million in salary cap space, fourth-most in the league.