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When Cameron Brate signed his last contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers he was praised for taking a team-friendly deal in lieu of cashing in on the open market. Similar gestures have been witnessed time and time again this off-season as Jason Licht and his amazing front office staff have brought back more than just the starting twenty-two players from Super Bowl LV.
When you really break it down, the Bucs will have their top twenty-five or so players back and have a top thirty that would make any NFL general manager or coaching staff green with envy.
Oh, and they still have a pick coming up in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft. We’ll get to that later though.
Today, the talk has been all about the re-signing of Antonio Brown, and for good reason.
If there were an asterisk on Brown’s deal though, it would read: *This deal brought to you by Cam Brate.
A common reaction to teams bringing back this much talent without losing a single big name player to free-agency is to ask, how? How did they do this?
Well, with the help of some creative contracting, and through the unselfishness of players like Cam Brate who agreed to a reworking of his current deal on Wednesday.
The Bucs and TE Cameron Brate have agreed to a reworked deal that clears $4.69M in cap space.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) April 28, 2021
Brate gets a $2.425M signing bonus and his salary is now $1.075M in 2021, with a team option for the final two years of his deal.
Tampa clears $$ to sign AB plus other moves as needed.
By clearing north of $4M for the Buccaneers, this effectively clears the path financially to re-sign Brown with more possible cap manipulation on the horizon.
Center Ryan Jensen is a name to watch as he is due $10M this season. He could be interested in working an extension similar to what Donovan Smith already did this off-season, adding a year or two for Jensen while spreading out the money for the franchise.
Although, reports are the team and their starting center haven’t had those talks yet.
Interesting news on NFL Draft eve, so if you were waiting until Thursday night for some excitement, it arrived a little early. Courtesy of Cam Brate, Antonio Brown, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.