Kellen Winslow should be cut. Jeff Faine should be cut. Quincy Black should be cut. Jeremy Trueblood should be cut. E.J. Biggers should be cut. Those are just some of the messages that a part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fanbase is sending. The idea, of course, is that you should get rid of subpar starters - especially if they earn a lot of money.
I don't agree with that position, however. Cutting players is all well and good, but if you don't have better replacements on your team the only thing you've succeeded in doing is making your team worse. That's not to say that I don't want the Bucs to improve on those positions - but cutting players who would at the worst make serviceable backups does nothing to help that point. I might disagree had the Bucs needed to clear salary cap space, but with their league-leading $67 million in cap space the need to add financial room isn't exactly great.
The question, of course, is whether the Buccaneers feel the same way. It is, after all, a business - and fans are very skeptical about the team's commitment to winning. Are they willing to pay Jeremy Trueblood some $5 million to be a nice, big, static cone?
Every team makes some decisions based more on salary than quality of play every offseason, and watching the players the Bucs decide to release will tell us something abut their dedication to winning. Cutting someone like Jeff Faine or Jeremy Trueblood without signing a replacement and that replacement's competition does nothing for the team's quality of play - but it surely does affect the team's financial situation. What will guide the team in these matters this offseason?