Buccaneers left tackle Tristan Wirfs sounds confident that he’ll have a new contract soon.
Wirfs said on Monday morning that he hoped to have an agreement before training camp but is happy with how close they’re getting.
“It would’ve been nice for it to have been done already, but that’s part of the business,” Wirfs said. “I was here all offseason training. Everyone knows I like it here. We’re working on getting it done. It’s been good.”
Wirfs said he wants to be cautious and not injure himself in training camp, but that holding out altogether is not something he would do. Wirfs indicated that he and head coach Todd Bowles are on the same page about him getting a reduced workload while he tries to stay healthy ahead of an anticipated contract agreement.
“I talked to Coach Bowles about it,” Wirfs said. “I’ve got to be out here. It’s just not in my DNA.”
Wirfs said they’re getting closer and working on the last details of a long-term agreement.
“It’s all been good. We’re just trying to work out some little things. I think we’re moving, the past couple days have been really, really good,” Wirfs said.
Bucs G.M. Jason Licht said Friday that he’s optimistic a Wirfs deal will be done soon, and with Wirfs saying something similar today, there’s every reason to believe a long-term contract will get done.
Mike Evans went into the offseason as one of the NFL’s top free agents. He was 11th on PFT’s list of top-100 free agents.
The receiver, though, never reached free agency.
The Buccaneers re-signed him to a two-year, $52 million deal on March 4, six days before the legal tampering period.
Evans revealed Sunday that he would have strongly considered the Texans or the Chiefs had he hit the market.
“I mean, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking Houston, Kansas City,” Evans told NFL Media. “I love Pat Mahomes’ game. I’m thinking those two teams. And I’m obviously thinking the Bucs.”
Houston is 51 miles from his hometown of Galveston and 93 miles from College Station, where he played his college football at Texas A&M. As big of a lure as that was, and playing with either C.J. Stroud in Houston, or playing with Mahomes was, Evans’ goal always has been to finish his career with the Buccaneers.
They drafted him in the first round in 2014, and he’s now the only player in NFL history to log 10 consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons to start his career.
“I mean, I’ve been here my whole career,” Evans said. “And that was a goal of mine, obviously. . . . It would’ve been extremely hard, if I hit free agency, to leave here. But this is where my family knows. My kids were born here. My wife’s been here a long time.”
Buccaneers left tackle Tristan Wirfs is going to be rewarded. It’s just a question of when.
As to the question of “how much?,” it’ll be more than any other left tackle in the league. Or maybe left and right tackle.
Bucs G.M. Jason Licht said Friday on WDAE that Wirfs deserves to be at the top of the stack. Even if it’s not clear which stack, left tackle or all tackles.
“I’m optimistic that it hopefully will be soon,” Licht said, via JoeBucsFan.com. “I was . . . talking about [safety] Antoine [Winfield earlier this year] saying, ‘Hey, the guy deserves to be highest paid [safety].’ And I would say the same thing for Tristan. So we’re working very diligently to see how we can do that, you know, so it can help both sides, as well. So it doesn’t hurt our future so we can still continue to win, but we can reward him.”
Wirfs is due to make $21 million this year, under his fifth-year option.
As left tackles go, Christian Darrisaw of the Vikings leads the pack with $26 million per year in new money. Lions right tackle Penei Sewell is the highest-paid player at the entire tackle position, with $28 million per year.
Wirfs has played right and left tackle. He flipped from the right side after Donovan Smith signed with the Chiefs last year as a free agent.
At any given time, there’s a small handful of NFL teams trying to get a stadium refurbished or replaced. In this regard, the Buccaneers are inching toward the front burner.
Via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, the team’s lease at Raymond James Stadium runs through 2028.
Stroud reports that some local officials are surprised about the lack of communication from the team.
“Even after repeated requests from the [Tampa] Sports Authority for information, the Buccaneers have still not provided us with any renovation plans,” Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, a member of the authority’s board, told Stroud.
“We have a good partnership with the Tampa Sports Authority and have always worked together to make sure Raymond James Stadium remains an enjoyable destination for all community events,” Bucs chief operating officer Brian Ford told Stroud.
That implies renovation, not replacement, to the venue that opened in 1998.
Funding will depend on a public vote set for November 5. That’s when county residents will determine whether to renew the Community Investment Tax, a key to paying for future renovations to the stadium.
If taxpayer money isn’t available, the Bucs could become a candidate for relocation. That’s how the stadium politics game goes. If the current city/county/state won’t cough up cash, it becomes time to look for someone who will.
By next year, the Bucs could be engaging in the early stages of just such a search.
Baker Mayfield earned a three-year contract extension with the Buccaneers after leading the team to the playoffs last year and that’s created a new kind of stability for the quarterback.
Mayfield looked set for a long run in Cleveland after being selected first overall in 2018 and guiding the Browns to a playoff win in 2020, but a down year in 2021 led to him being traded to Carolina. The Panthers dumped him during that season and he wound up with the Bucs after a brief stint with the Rams, so he had plenty to prove in his first year in Tampa.
Mayfield proved his mettle and he believes even better things are coming now that he’ll have a chance to build on a foundation for the first time in years.
“My NFL career, has it been what I want it to be? No, but it’s gotten me to this point to where I signed a long-term deal,” Mayfield said, via the team’s website. “When I settle in, good things happen. I know how I am, I know how I operate. When I can truly dig my feet in to make a difference in the culture and the people around me and make people better — that’s when I’m at my best. I haven’t been in a place for very long without coaching changes in a long time. I go back to Oklahoma for four years was the longest point and then to Cleveland — but we still had coaching changes in and out at pretty much every year. It’s just different. I have no doubt in my mind.”
Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles said earlier this week that he thinks Mayfield probably has “a bigger chip” on his shoulder after signing his deal. Mayfield’s comments don’t make it sound like he’s in quite so contentious a place, but they should still provide some optimism about what the future holds for the Bucs.
