Bucs May Not Tag Antoine Winfield Jr. After All?

“He had one of the best seasons I’ve seen a safety have as an all-around player,” Bowles said. “And it wasn’t just in the game. It was in practice as well. He was the only guy, even if we were practicing red zone. If he picked the ball up at the five, he’s going to run 95 yards. And go back in the game. He’s not going to take himself out and go to the water buckets.

“If he picked it off in the end zone, he ran 100 yards. Wherever he picked the ball at, or caused a fumble at, he transferred practice to the game… Him and Lavonte [David] are almost better than anybody I have been around in the past few years.”

Winfield had 122 tackles, six sacks, three interceptions and a league-leading six forced fumbles in 2023.

Given how valuable Antoine Winfield Jr. clearly is overall, and specifically to Bowles and the Bucs defense, it is imperative the team keeps him in the fold for 2024 and beyond. With the team needing to negotiate multiple long-term deals for pending free agents like Mike Evans and Baker Mayfield, it made sense that Winfield was a likely candidate for the franchise tag.

But based on what general manager Jason Licht had to say at his press conference in Indianapolis, the team may be closer to a long-term deal that would lock up Winfield for years to come and avoid the tag altogether.

Bucs GM Jason Licht Discusses Antoine Winfield Jr. Contract

On Tuesday, Licht told Tampa media that the Bucs have begun talks with their top in-house free agents and feel good about where they are.

“We’ve started talks with Baker [Mayfield]. We’ve started with Mike [Evans], Antoine, Tristan [Wirfs], Lavonte [David]… I think they’re going well.”

Later, Licht was asked specifically about whether he felt he would need to use the franchise tag on Winfield. While that move seemed more than likely, Licht maintained that he’s hopeful that it won’t not be necessary.

“It’s something to keep in your back pocket,” he said. “Ideally, we would like to get a deal done. We’ve already started some talks there.”

Avoiding the tag has several advantages if the Bucs can work out an extension with Winfield. Most importantly, it secures his services for the long-term. Any deal that Winfield would agree to would likely be for three or four years.

Secondly, it would help the team with cap room in 2023. The franchise tag for a safety this year is $17,123,000. That number is not adjustable through proration, void years, etc. An extension affords the Bucs the opportunity to structure the deal that would keep Winfield’s 2023 cap hit considerably lower than that and help free up money for other moves the team wants to make.

Lastly, by getting a deal done now, they avoid having Winfield’s price going up even further. The NFL salary cap increased by over $30 million this year. Next year, it is likely to rise by a similar number. Chargers’ safety Derwin James currently holds the record for largest average annual value for a safety at $19 million per year. That deal was signed in 2022 when the NFL salary cap was $208.2 million.

If Winfield simply aims to match James’ deal as a percentage of the cap in the year signed, his AAV would be as high as $23 million this year but could potentially go up to $26 million next year if the salary cap were to climb to $285 million. By signing him now, the team can help to mitigate how high that figure can go.

I detailed how much Winfield could get midway through the 2023 season for Pewter Report here. More recently, I updated that number for AtoZ Sports here. It is highly likely at this point that the deal will eclipse $20 million per year.

Could Licht And The Bucs Still Use The Franchise Tag?

While Licht stated he feels like the two sides could get a long-term deal done, it doesn’t mean that he won’t have to use the tag as a means of getting there.

Even if a team tags a player, they still have time to work out a long-term extension. The deadline for that is July 15th. After that, the tag remains in effect until the end of the team’s season before they can negotiate an extension. Given Licht’s history of locking up his best players, it seems safe to say the Bucs will have a deal done with Winfield long before then.

The decision on whether they want to use the tag will have to come soon, as the deadline to franchise tag players is March 5 at 4:00 p.m.