The Buccaneers and star defensive lineman Gerald McCoy are making progress towards an extension, writes Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports. While McCoy will certainly demand a highly-lucrative contract, La Canfora points out that the Bucs rid themselves of expensive salaries during the offseason by parting ways with players like Donald Penn and Darrelle Revis, and even if they draft a signal-caller next May, they will not be committing a great deal of money to the quarterback position.
Furthermore, the team will have $30MM of available cap space next season, is projected to have about $58MM of room in 2016, and there are almost no players with hefty signing bonuses. As La Canfora writes, this means “their cap prorations on their best players are manageable and all are essentially on year-to-year deals and easily released without cash or cap ramifications.”
Joel Corry tweets that it would cost over $18MM for Tampa Bay to put the franchise tag on McCoy in 2015, so that is not exactly a tenable solution. Instead, all signs point to the Buccaneers striking a deal with the face of their franchise sometime during the season, which would be a bit of good news for a team desperately in need of some.
I detailed McCoy’s candidacy for an extension back in May, a post that details McCoy’s accomplishments to this point and projects what his next contract might look like.