With the 2009 salary cap increasing by nearly another $1 million, a league source tells us that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers now have more than $37 million in spending space.
The question becomes this: How in the hell will the Bucs spend all that money?
There aren’t many veterans available who would command large contracts, so unless they’re thinking about making a run at Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers, newcomers to the organization need not get their hopes up.
So the other strategy would be to identify worthy young players over the early stages of the 2009 season, and to give them new contracts with big roster bonuses or first-year base salaries. This would be the best way to chew up the remaining cap space.
The large gap has arisen because the Bucs have, via accounting gimmicks available to all teams, carried over excess cap space from one year to the next.
In all, the Bucs have more than $25 million that was shifted to 2009 from past years.
Earlier this year, former G.M. Bruce Allen said that the team intends to spend all that money.
Those comments were made, however, before the team was saddled with the responsibility of buying out the contracts of Allen and former head coach Jon Gruden.
Unfortunately for the Bucs, those buyouts don’t count against the cap.