One of Tom Brady‘s Patriots blockers is set to fill one of the Buccaneers’ open spots at guard. The Pats are trading Shaq Mason to the Bucs, Mike Garafolo and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com report (via Twitter).
Two years remain on Mason’s contract, which contains base salaries of just $6.5MM and $7.5MM. Mason has been with New England throughout his career; he was a starter on the final three Pats teams Brady piloted to the Super Bowl.
The Bucs are sending a fifth-round pick to the Pats for the veteran guard, Mike Giardi of NFL.com tweets. It is a 2022 fifth, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.
The compensation is similar to the Bucs-Pats’ Rob Gronkowski transaction two years ago. Tampa Bay sent a fourth to New England for Gronk, reuniting him with Brady. After a retirement that did not even last two months, Brady’s return appears to have keyed some aggressive Bucs maneuvers. Ryan Jensen is back at center, and the team is re-signing top cornerback Carlton Davis. It should be expected Gronk will return as well.
Tampa Bay has seen its guard tandem of the past four years — Ali Marpet–Alex Cappa — splinter, with Marpet retiring and Cappa committing to the Bengals. Mason has been regarded as one of the league’s better guards, making this compensation appear rather light given the low salaries tied to his deal.
A fourth-round pick in 2015, Mason moved into the Patriots’ starting lineup quickly. He started 98 games for the Pats over the past seven seasons. Mason signed a five-year, $45MM extension with the Pats in 2018. Given where the guard market has gone, that deal looks team-friendly now. It would not surprise if the Bucs addressed the contract at some point. This will be Mason’s age-29 season; his age-28 campaign ended with Pro Football Focus grading him fourth overall among guards.
The Pats have now seen their longtime Mason-Joe Thuney guard duo disband, with Thuney defecting to the Chiefs in March 2021. The two played together for five seasons. New England will create just more than $7MM in cap space by trading Mason. Trent Brown, New England’s right tackle in 2021, is also unattached presently. Michael Onwenu would make sense as a starter in 2022, given the departures of Mason and Ted Karras (Bengals). But the Pats have work to do up front.
Wow why, he’s one of the best guards in the league.
Is he really? Never made a PB or All Pro team and will be turning 29 soon.
Explain how the Bucs are able to make all of these deals so far over the cap?
Restructing deals like Vita Vea. Restructing his deal created 7.64 mill relief.
Theyll probably restructure some combination of Brady, Evans, Barrett, Smith, David contracts to create room.
You can also structure contracts so cap hits hurt later rather than sooner. Im sure some of these deals are back loaded for that very purpose.
For instance David took 4.5 this year with a cap hit of 8.16
Next two years hes taking 14.5 anf 14 mill salaries with cap hits in the 18 mill range
Davis* the cb
Given what free agent guards are getting, this is a steal.
Now SHAQ to unretire and play in Tampa !!
Heist of the off-season so far. Wow. A guard of his caliber on his contract should be worth a third at least.
This makes perfect sense for the Bucs. This also makes zero sense for the Pats.
Makes sense for Pats, cap relief
As a Pats fan, I’m befuddled that they couldn’t get more for a good OL on a relatively cheap contract for 2 years. This shocks me.
Unless they’re going to flip the 5 for La’el Collins.
Dallas should’ve been all over this. For how cheap his contract is and how sold he has been that would’ve been a steal for them, and they could focus elsewhere in the draft. Not to mention for only a 5th, especially considering Dallas got 2 comp 5ths, they definitely should’ve been in the conversation.