Both Tampa Bay Buccaneers it looks different for the new season. All 22 Starter from the Super-Bowl-Success over the Kansas City Chiefs are also under contract in Florida this season. Shaquil “Shaq” Barrett, Chris Godwin, Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski, Ndamukong Suh, Leonard Fournette und Antonio Brown had expiring contracts, but the management of the “Bucs“managed to extend all of them. For this, contracts with other star players had to be restructured and salaries postponed to other years – currently that of Wide-Receiver-Star Mike Evans be adjusted again – but the trick succeeded.
Brady is also a key player financially
For the first time since Pittsburgh Steelers 1979 has a Super-Bowl-Champion so all of his Starter together again to tackle the title defense project. The “Bucs“, that Quarterback Tom Brady not the most expensive Signal Callern belongs to the league. Traditional is that Quarterback-The position where the highest salaries are paid. Brady is there, depending on what value you look at, somewhere in the midfield of the league. That creates financial leeway.
In addition: The Buccaneers were never in the playoffs in the seasons before their title win, so they didn’t have an expensive playoff squad with a number of coveted superstars – accordingly, some of the top players’ contracts are (still) relatively affordable.
The title window is (only) now open
However, that should change in the coming seasons – due to all the extensions, the squad is now one of the most expensive. It seems at least questionable whether all expiring working papers can be renewed in the same way next year. Also, some players are like “Gronk”, Brown, Suh oder Jason Pierre-Paul (then) already in the fall of her career.
While defending a title in the NFL is really a rarity, the team’s chances of winning the championship are Coach Bruce Arians in the next few years it will probably never be as big as it is now. And even if you are at Brady cannot apply the same age standards as others Quarterbacks, the man is now 44 years old. Sometime in the next two to four years, the “eternal” Tom will probably also stop or at least visibly decrease.
Even more well-rehearsed – even stronger?
But there shouldn’t be any talk of that this season. In theory it should be straight Tampa Bays Offensive become even stronger – at least it should keep the level of the second half of the season. Because with 7-5 wins they were Buccaneers Didn’t start the season that well. Not a big surprise because Quarterbacks often need a little start-up time to implement the Offense from Bruce Arians to learn.
But after the narrow defeat against Kansas City in week 12 it apparently “clicked”: the “Bucs“came from their week without games and from then on won all four season and all four playoff games in an impressive manner.
Fixed vulnerability
A small weak point of the Offense was incidentally due to the obligation of supplementaryRunning-Back Giovani Bernard closed. Bernard is a significantly better passport recipient than Fournette and Ronald Jones II – and Brady loves his Running Backs to be included in the passing game.
If you now assume that, in contrast to the previous Corona season, there was real preparation for the season this time and that Offense had already been able to establish itself for a year beforehand, there is hardly any counter-argument why the “Bucs“shouldn’t be one of the big favorites again.
After all, it was Brady, who won the 2005 Patriots last time “Back-to-Back-Super-Bowls“got – and the Steelers of 79 also defended their championship.
Stand: 08.09.2021, 09:00
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