With the Bucs miles under any projected salary floor they will be forced to spend a lot of money this year. We've gone over this several times, and the Bucs have some in-house candidates to spend on, like Davin Joseph, Barrett Ruud and Quincy Black. In a pinch they could even decide to extend some of their players who are already under contract, like Geno Hayes and Josh Freeman - or even Aqib Talib, though that seems unlikely. But with all that money there's always going to be talk of the biggest free agent around coming to the Tampa Bay area: Nnamdi Asomugha.
Jason LaCanfora kicked it off by suggesting that the Bucs could spend it all on Asomugha, as they planned to do with Albert Haynesworth a few seasons back. Bucstats offers an interesting rebuttal, focusing on the fact that Nnamdi will get in the way of the development of young, talented cornerbacks Myron Lewis and E.J. Biggers. While that's a good argument on face value, Nnamdi will likely be playing at a high level for 4 years or more (if we can go by cornerbacks like Champ Bailey, Charles Woodson and even Ronde Barber) and I'd rather have 4 years of Nnamdi Asomugha than 8 years of E.J. Biggers. You can't count on players developing, but you can count on Asomugha to play well. In addition, the Bucs could always say goodbye to Aqib Talib after his offseason troubles, and they would sorely need a starting quality cornerback then.
After all, Asomugha has consistently been the least-targeted starting cornerback in the NFL. According to Football Outsiders he was thrown at an average of 29 times these past three seasons. You may glance at his interceptions (11 for a career) and come away unimpressed, but those are largely a result of everyone picking on other, weaker Oakland cornerbacks instead. To me, articles like Bucky Brooks' condemnation of Nnamdi as a player hold no ground. Nnamdi's value, like Revis' value, is in not being thrown at, not in creating turnovers.
That said, that may be the biggest reason why the Bucs could pass on Nnamdi, other than money: he hasn't created many turnovers, and Raheem Morris loves turnovers. "Score or get the ball back" is the motto of the Bucs' defense, and any Tampa-2 based defense places a premium on turnovers over yardage given up. That said, Nnamdi has not had many opportunities to get his hands on balls, and should be in better position to create turnovers in the Bucs' varied and well-schemed secondary. Raheem Morris could use someone like Nnamdi Asomugha to build a defense around that will create turnovers, without Nnamdi himself getting his hands on the ball.
But, as I said, there's always the money. Nnamdi is likely to demand franchise-quarterback money, and while the Bucs can afford to pay that kind of money, they may not see this as good value for a cornerback.
So, do you think the Bucs should sign Nnamdi?