How the Buccaneers could lose Lavonte David in NFL free agency (2024)

There is panic afoot.

The start of NFL free agency looms — just 11 days away — and the defending Super Bowl champion Bucs have a slew of free agents to re-sign, with limited salary-cap room to pull that off.

Tampa Bay has three of the top 20 free agents at any position, according to the ranking of the NFL’s top 50 free agents by The Athletic’s Sheil Kapadia, with receiver Chris Godwin (No. 3) likely getting a franchise tag and outside linebacker Shaq Barrett (No. 10) fresh off last year’s tag and looking for a lucrative, long-term deal.

So where does that leave inside linebacker Lavonte David (No. 15), the Bucs’ longest-tenured player, with nine seasons in Tampa? Is it possible that the image of the 31-year-old celebrating a championship on his home field is the last that fans see of David in a Bucs uniform?

NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo speculated as much Wednesday, saying the Bucs’ cap constraints could lead David to finish his career with another team.

“At some point, you’re getting to a point where you just don’t have enough money for everybody,” Garafolo said. “I think there is the general sense that Lavonte David is going to be headed elsewhere. … There’s a lot of teams out there looking to upgrade their defense, and they’ve got a lot of money to spend here. I would think Lavonte David’s going to wind up being elsewhere in 2021.”

David, who just finished a five-year, $50 million contract, said he wants to return to the Bucs, and general manager Jason Licht and coach Bruce Arians have publicly made it clear they want him back. David — a central leader and team captain — was the single Tampa Bay player sent to midfield for the coin toss in the Super Bowl. When he spoke to a crowd of players, family and friends after the team’s celebratory boat parade, David said “I want to be back. I’d love to be back,” with Arians memorably stealing the microphone and saying “your ass ain’t going nowhere.”

The sentiment of wanting everyone back isn’t the same thing as the ability to pay everyone enough to keep them from leaving. The Bucs can create much more cap room to help keep a Super Bowl roster close to intact, but it comes down to individual players making individual decisions about what’s next for them and best for them.

The Bucs have been here with well-respected defensive stars before. David is a year older than Warren Sapp was and the same age John Lynch was when the Bucs won a Super Bowl in 2003, and while both were under contract to remain with Tampa Bay after that championship season, they were gone a year later. Lynch played his final four years in Denver, making four Pro Bowls with the Broncos, while Sapp played his final four seasons with the Raiders, never making another Pro Bowl and finishing with just 19.5 total sacks while in Oakland.

So what is the actual market for David? Inside linebacker is a young man’s position. Of the 42 NFL players to get 100 or more tackles in 2020, only two (the Lions’ Jamie Collins and the Saints’ Demario Davis) were older than David. Those two are probably the closest comps to David as a free agent; Collins, four months older than David, got a three-year, $30 million contract last year, and this was after a 2019 season when he had seven sacks, three interceptions and three forced fumbles. Davis, a year older than David, signed a three-year, $27 million extension in September, coming off a first-team All-Pro season in 2019.

You can argue that David is a better linebacker than both, and he carries the premium of a newly crowned Super Bowl winner, but he’s older than both were when they signed their most recent deals. For negotiating purposes, the gold standard at the position is Seattle’s Bobby Wagner, who in 2019 (at age 29) got a three-year, $54 million deal, $18 million per year. But Wagner also has made seven consecutive Pro Bowls and has been a first-team All-Pro selection in five consecutive years. David only has one year with each honor and none since 2015.

There’s ample precedent for a Bucs inside linebacker continuing to play at a high level at David’s age and older. The team has had great success defying age at the position in the past 20 years, with Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Brooks earning All-Pro honors at 32 and a Pro Bowl nod as old as 35, and Shelton Quarles and Hardy Nickerson enjoying 100-tackle seasons at the ages of 35 and 34, respectively.

Any team giving David a multi-year contract this month wants him to be Thomas Davis, the longtime Panthers linebacker who just announced his retirement at age 37 this week. Davis was an All-Pro at 32, getting 105 tackles with four interceptions and 5.5 sacks, and he made the Pro Bowl again at ages 33 and 34. But even he wasn’t paid that well, re-signing with Carolina at age 31 on a three-year, $18 million extension in 2015. Adjust that for six years of cap inflation and it’s still only about $8 million per year.

What’s more, this isn’t a good offseason to be a free agent. Due to lost revenues related to COVID-19, the NFL’s salary cap is expected to drop, perhaps by as much as $18 million, to $180 million from last year’s $198 million figure. Top-tier free agents might be tempted to take a one-year deal given the economic climate, then reset their value next year, when new TV contracts could cause the cap spike to as much as $220 million. And teams will make cuts in the next two weeks to help get under the cap, diluting the free-agent talent pool with more veterans than usual.

So how much might David fetch on the open market? Spotrac, a site that tracks NFL contracts and team cap space, gave David a projected market value of $12.7 million per year (three years, $38 million). There’s no real precedent for an inside linebacker as old as David earning that much, but again, David is more proven than most who reach the open market at the position.

The Browns have been mentioned as a potential suitor for him, an 11-5 wild-card team like the Bucs that won a road playoff game before a close loss to the Chiefs. Cleveland would certainly see him as an upgrade who would bring veteran leadership to a young defense, and this is the Browns’ final season with quarterback Baker Mayfield cheap on his rookie contract, so it makes sense they’d be aggressive in trying to build a Super Bowl team for the coming season.

But the Browns didn’t value inside linebacker much last year, bringing in free agents B.J. Goodson ($2.4 million) and Malcolm Smith ($1.05 million) to play with 2019 third-round pick Sione Takitaki. No team in the NFL has less money committed to linebackers for 2021 than the Browns, though that might mean they have the most obvious opening for a high-dollar addition. The Browns have similar cap space to the Bucs as it stands, but there isn’t much precedent for them paying big money to bring in a player already in his 30s.

You’ll also hear the Dolphins mentioned as a potential match for David, who was born in Miami and graduated from Miami’s Northwestern High School, with plenty of family still in the area. The Dolphins just cut loose linebacker Kyle Van Noy, just one year into a four-year, $52 million contract he signed last year. So Miami has plenty of cap room, a big opening at David’s position, a personal connection for him and a young defense in need of veteran leadership.

There could be other teams wooing David, but if he’s already made more than $55 million and won a championship, the decision is more likely about whether he wants to finish his career where he started it — a rare privilege here, one Brooks and Ronde Barber enjoyed — or to seek the challenge of a new chapter for the end of his playing days. For both sides, a one-year extension at close to his 2020 salary would make sense, tabling that choice for a season, chasing another ring and re-evaluating his future with more outside money available in 2022.

(Photo: Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)