After so many seasons, Tom Brady is ready to hang them up for good this time. Though he had already flirted with retirement only a year ago, it took only another NFL season for the 7x Super Bowl champ to definitely call it a career. Needless to say, this means a significant change for the Buccaneers.
Tampa Bay had found in Brady the perfect man for the job, as the veteran proved to have enough left in the tank to deliver the second Vince Lombardi trophy in franchise history. Now, the Bucs have to figure out how to move on.
If replacing one of, if not the greatest quarterback of all time is already difficult enough, let alone when your salary cap situation is far from great. With Brady gone, Tampa Bay will have little wiggle room to find their new QB1.
What's the Tampa Bay Buccaneers cap space in 2023 after Tom Brady's retirement?
The Buccaneers are projected to be $55 million over the salary cap in 2023, as long as they do not bring back any of their 23 unrestricted free agents this offseason. Brady will still carry nearly $35 million of dead cap space, but his retirement will let the Bucs split it over two years.
Spotrac expects the team and Brady to work out a series of steps to eventually split his dead cap hit into $10.776m for 2023, and $24.32m for 2024. Therefore, the Bucs would save $24 million this year, making their salary cap situation a little less awful.
