Buccaneers tender Cameron Brate, Adam Humphries, three others

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are busy retaining their exclusive rights free agents, as expected. According to the Tampa Bay Times, they’ve now tendered five of the team’s six exclusive rights free agents in tight end Cameron Brate, wide receiver Adam Humphries, cornerback Jude Adjei-Barimah, linebacker Adarius Glanton and wide receiver Freddie Martino.

Exclusive rights free agents are those whose contracts are set to expire, but who have two or fewer vested seasons of NFL experience. The exclusive rights tender comes with a minimum salary that is not guaranteed, and tendered players cannot sign with other teams. In other words: there is literally no downside to tendering exclusive rights free agents.

The Bucs have one more exclusive rights free agent they haven’t tendered: defensive end Howard Jones, who is recovering from a torn ACL. The team can also extend a more expensive tender to restricted free agent Jacquies Smith, who’s also recovering from injury. We’ll have to wait and see whether that happens.

The Bucs are preparing for a fairly significant outflow of free agents outside of these six, though. Jacquizz Rodgers, Vincent Jackson, Chris Conte, Gosder Cherilus, Bradley McDougald, Daryl Smith, Joe Hawley and Josh Robinson are among those with significant 2016 playing time who are set to hit the open market. Expect some of them, especially the younger players, to sign new contracts before free agency hits.