Bucs Cut Bruce Carter, Re-Sign Keith Tandy

6:11pm: It’s a two-year deal for Tandy, tweets Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times.

4:25pm: The Buccaneers have released one defensive notable while re-signing another. The Bucs have officially released Bruce Carter and re-signed safety Keith Tandy, as Scott Smith of Buccaneers.com writes. 

Tampa Bay rarely employs signing bonuses, and because it didn’t use one when signing Carter prior to last season, the club won’t incur any dead money. Instead, the Buccaneers will not only avoid paying a $750K roster bonus, but they’ll clear Carter’s scheduled base salaries of $4.25MM over the next three seasons. Following Carter’s release, Tampa will have roughly $50MM in cap space when the free agent period begins.

Carter, 28, will last only a single season with the Buccaneers after spending the first four years of his career with the Cowboys. An outside linebacker in Dallas, Carter was expected to serve as Tampa’s middle linebacker, but quickly lost the job to rookie Kwon Alexander, and ended up playing less than 30% of the Bucs’ defensive snaps.

Tandy, an unrestricted free agent, has long been expected to return to Tampa Bay. Last season, Tandy appeared in 14 games (2 starts) and racked up 38 total tackles, 1 sack, and 1 pass deflection.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.