Here’s a look at the latest tender decisions from around the NFL:
Tendered:
Non-tendered:
Tendered:
Here are the details from the latest agreed-upon contracts around the league:
The NFL has awarded compensatory draft picks for teams in the 2022 draft. These picks are awarded to the teams that suffered the most significant free agent losses during the 2021 offseason.
This year, the NFL awarded 39 comp picks. The comp pick formula assigns picks to franchises who suffered the largest net losses, so teams that signed multiple free agents have a lesser chance of receiving picks.
This year’s formula also includes the changes made last year, when teams began receiving third-round comp picks due to the hiring of minority head coaches and general managers. Seven such picks were awarded this year. The 49ers landed two additional third-rounders this year, obtaining the extra selections for the Jets’ 2021 Robert Saleh hire and the Dolphins hiring Mike McDaniel this year. Miami’s McDaniel hire will give San Francisco another third-rounder in 2023.
The Chiefs obtained a third-rounder for the Bears’ Ryan Poles GM hire, while the Browns landed a third because of the Vikings’ Kwesi Adofo-Mensah GM hire. The Ravens collected their second third-round for the Texans’ 2021 David Culley hire; Culley has since been fired. The Saints and Rams obtained one apiece after seeing the Falcons and Lions hire minority execs Terry Fontenot and Brad Holmes as GMs in 2021. New Orleans and Detroit also landed thirds because of players given high-value contacts last year (Trey Hendrickson and Kenny Golladay, respectively).
Here is the full list of 2022 compensatory selections:
Round 3: Lions (No. 97 overall), Saints (98), Browns (99)*, Ravens (100)*, Saints (101)*, 49ers (102)*, Chiefs (103)*, Rams (104)*, 49ers (105)*
Round 4: Steelers (No. 138), Ravens (139), Packers (140), Ravens (141), Rams (142), Titans (143)
Round 5: Cowboys (No. 176), Lions (177), Cowboys (178), Colts (179)
Round 6: Rams (No. 211), Rams (212), Falcons (213), Chargers (214), Cardinals (215), Colts (216), Lions (217), Rams (218), Titans (219), 49ers (220), 49ers (221)
Round 7: Chargers (No. 254), Chargers (255), Cardinals (256), Cardinals (257), Packers (258), Chiefs (259), Chargers (260), Buccaneers (261), 49ers (262)
San Francisco 49ers (5)
Los Angeles Rams (5)
Los Angeles Chargers (4)
Arizona Cardinals (3)
Baltimore Ravens (3)
Detroit Lions (3)
Dallas Cowboys (2)
Green Bay Packers (2)
Indianapolis Colts (2)
Kansas City Chiefs (2)
New Orleans Saints (2)
Tennessee Titans (2)
Atlanta Falcons (1)
Cleveland Browns (1)
Pittsburgh Steelers (1)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1)
* = special compensatory selection
One of Tom Brady‘s Patriots blockers is set to fill one of the Buccaneers’ open spots at guard. The Pats are trading Shaq Mason to the Bucs, Mike Garafolo and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com report (via Twitter).
Two years remain on Mason’s contract, which contains base salaries of just $6.5MM and $7.5MM. Mason has been with New England throughout his career; he was a starter on the final three Pats teams Brady piloted to the Super Bowl.
The Bucs are sending a fifth-round pick to the Pats for the veteran guard, Mike Giardi of NFL.com tweets. It is a 2022 fifth, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.
The compensation is similar to the Bucs-Pats’ Rob Gronkowski transaction two years ago. Tampa Bay sent a fourth to New England for Gronk, reuniting him with Brady. After a retirement that did not even last two months, Brady’s return appears to have keyed some aggressive Bucs maneuvers. Ryan Jensen is back at center, and the team is re-signing top cornerback Carlton Davis. It should be expected Gronk will return as well.
Tampa Bay has seen its guard tandem of the past four years — Ali Marpet–Alex Cappa — splinter, with Marpet retiring and Cappa committing to the Bengals. Mason has been regarded as one of the league’s better guards, making this compensation appear rather light given the low salaries tied to his deal.
A fourth-round pick in 2015, Mason moved into the Patriots’ starting lineup quickly. He started 98 games for the Pats over the past seven seasons. Mason signed a five-year, $45MM extension with the Pats in 2018. Given where the guard market has gone, that deal looks team-friendly now. It would not surprise if the Bucs addressed the contract at some point. This will be Mason’s age-29 season; his age-28 campaign ended with Pro Football Focus grading him fourth overall among guards.
The Pats have now seen their longtime Mason-Joe Thuney guard duo disband, with Thuney defecting to the Chiefs in March 2021. The two played together for five seasons. New England will create just more than $7MM in cap space by trading Mason. Trent Brown, New England’s right tackle in 2021, is also unattached presently. Michael Onwenu would make sense as a starter in 2022, given the departures of Mason and Ted Karras (Bengals). But the Pats have work to do up front.
Despite rostering Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, the Buccaneers have agreed to terms with Russell Gage. The ex-Falcons wideout will join the Bucs’ deep receiving stable, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.
It’s a three-year deal worth $30MM, according to Aaron Wilson of ProFootballNetwork.com (on Twitter). The deal contains $20MM in guaranteed money.
Coming off back-to-back 700-yard seasons, Gage looks set to step into Tampa Bay’s WR3 role — one vacated by Antonio Brown — behind the two Pro Bowlers. This move arms the Bucs with a proven complementary weapon while further depleting a Falcons receiving corps that has seen its crew decimated over the past several months.
Since June 2021, the Falcons have seen their Gage-Julio Jones–Calvin Ridley trio gutted by the Jones trade, Ridley’s in-season exit and subsequent gambling suspension and now this impending transaction. Atlanta has some critical work to do at the receiver position this offseason. Gage’s 770 receiving yards — in just 14 games — were by far the most among Falcons wideouts last season.
The Bucs used their franchise tag on Godwin for the second straight year, keeping their younger Pro Bowl receiver in the fold for Tom Brady‘s third season with the team. While Brady famously advocated for Brown, constant turmoil notwithstanding, the mercurial standout burned the Bucs for that faith late last season. Gage is now set to step into a much higher-profile NFC South role.
Carlton Davis will follow Ryan Jensen in staying with the Buccaneers. The standout cornerback agreed to terms with the Bucs on Monday afternoon, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.
It is a three-year, $45MM pact, CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson tweets, adding that it comes with $30MM guaranteed (Twitter link). Davis will see $23.5MM fully guaranteed, Ben Volin of the Boston Globe notes (on Twitter), adding that Davis’ pact maxes out at $45MM. The base total figures to come in a bit below that.
Tampa Bay was over the cap before this Davis agreement, so the team will need to continue to make moves ahead of Wednesday’s start to the 2022 league year. But Davis returning fills a key need for a Bucs team that is now firmly back in the Super Bowl mix, Tom Brady having unretired and all. A team that was close to falling to fringe-contender status now has re-upped its center and top cornerback, spending to fortify its roster as it did in 2021.
Within minutes, cornerback-seeking teams have seen the two top UFAs move off the board. The Chargers just gave J.C. Jackson a $16.5MM-per-year deal; Davis’ checks in just below that. The former Bucs second-round pick will still earn top-10 cornerback money.
Although Davis missed seven games last season with a quad injury, he returned in early December and finished the season to re-establish his value. After a four-interception 2020 season, Davis nabbed just one pick last year. He allowed an 83.2 passer rating when targeted and entered the offseason as one of the top free agents available. This will ensure the Bucs’ top corners from recent years — the homegrown trio of Davis, Sean Murphy-Bunting and Jamel Dean — are on track to reprise their roles in 2022. The latter two will go into contract years.
Tampa Bay has lost both its guard starters from the past four seasons — Ali Marpet and Alex Cappa — to retirement and a Bengals defection, respectively, but the team has done well to make these deals happen. Although, the Bucs might have to dip into the void-year realm again to fit these contracts onto their payroll. (No void years are present in Davis’ deal, however, Greg Auman of The Athletic tweets.) Leonard Fournette, Rob Gronkowski, Jason Pierre-Paul and Ndamukong Suh are still unattached.
The Brady effect has started already and it is strong. Buccaneers center Ryan Jensen was poised for quite the pay day on the free agent market this week, but, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Jensen has agreed to a three-year, $39MM deal returning him to Tampa Bay.
Drafted by the Ravens in the sixth round of the 2013 NFL Draft, Jensen was released, signed to the practice squad, and then eventually promoted to full-time starter over the first four years of his career. After one season as the starting center in Baltimore, Jensen signed a four-year, $42MM contract with the Buccaneers that made him the highest-paid center in the NFL at the time. The new deal makes Jensen the second-highest-paid center in the NFL now behind only Frank Ragnow, who averages $13.5MM per year. Jensen’s new contract has a guaranteed amount of $23MM at signing, with a potential $3.3MM of incentives.
Jensen’s efforts in Tampa Bay last year were rewarded with a Pro Bowl appearance. He didn’t have his best season according to Pro Football Focus, who graded him out as the league’s 14th-best center. But Jensen hasn’t missed a game in five straight seasons and he should be able to replace the leadership on the offensive line lost with the retirement of Ali Marpet. Who knows? The return of Jensen and quarterback Tom Brady may have some influence in bringing back right guard Alex Cappa, set to hit free agency this week, and maybe even Marpet, who retired at 28-years-old.
Regardless of what else may come in Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers and Brady will be happy to see the return of their Pro Bowl center. Center-quarterback chemistry is an important dynamic on an NFL offense and, some may remember, Jensen already knows just the right techniques to keep his butt sweat-free, just the way his quarterback prefers it.
It looks like the Buccaneers’ quarterback questions have been answered for now. Get comfortable, Kyle Trask, you’ve got a bit longer to wait. After 40 days of retirement, Tom Brady has announced he will return for his 23rd season of NFL football in a tweet this evening. He announced he has unfinished business in Tampa after the team lost in the Divisional Round of the playoffs last year to the eventual-Super Bowl Champion Rams. 
Rumors of a Brady unretirement had persisted since his February 1st announcement. Brady even hinted at the possibility of a Favre-like return, coming back just in time for training camp. The Buccaneers, on the other hand, made it very clear that they had no intention of allowing Brady to play elsewhere for the 2022 NFL Season. It turns out, they have nothing to worry about for now. Brady cited his love for his teammates in his unretirement announcement.
Some details will need to be hashed out as Brady still had four years on his contract, with all years after 2022 being voided upon his retirement. Past that, Tampa Bay has several offensive pieces set to become unrestricted free agents including center Ryan Jensen, tight ends Rob Gronkowski and O.J. Howard, and running backs Leonard Fournette, Ronald Jones II, and Giovani Bernard. If they are going to attempt another glory run, these loose ends will need to be tied up.
In response to the news, no one is more happy to see the quarterback return than Rams’ cornerback Jalen Ramsey who was set to spend eternity as the last person to have Tom Brady throw a touchdown on them. On the other hand, no one is less happy to see the quarterback return than the unfortunate big-spender who just dropped $518,000 at an auction in a bid to receive Tom Brady’s final touchdown ball. Looks like there will be many other balls getting thrown past many other defensive backs before Brady retires again.
According to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, the Buccaneers have evaluated Browns QB Baker Mayfield in case he should become available via trade (Twitter link). The Bucs are reportedly still part of the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes, though they could be battling a host of other teams, including the Browns, for his services.
Mayfield’s future in Cleveland is uncertain at the moment. While the club has publicly committed to him as its starting signal-caller for 2022, no extension talks will take place this offseason. As such, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2018 draft is scheduled to play out the upcoming campaign on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract, worth a fully-guaranteed $18.9MM.
Cleveland’s reluctance to authorize a long-term accord for Mayfield is understandable. After a promising showing as a rookie, the Oklahoma product — along with the rest of the offense — took a major step back during Freddie Kitchen‘s only season as head coach in 2019. Everything was looking rosy for all involved in 2020, Kevin Stefanski‘s first year at the helm, which saw Mayfield post a top-10 QBR en route to a divisional round appearance.
However, the Browns regressed again in 2021, compiling an 8-9 record and failing to make it back to the playoffs. For his part, Mayfield struggled through a torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder and finished near the bottom of the league in terms of QBR and quarterback rating, so of his four professional seasons, two of them can be fairly classified as major disappointments.
If Cleveland is able to acquire Watson, Mayfield would land squarely on the trade block (unless, of course, he heads to the Texans as part of the Watson deal). Assuming the Bucs like what they have seen on film, they could then make a push for Mayfield to fill the void left by Tom Brady, provided Brady doesn’t reverse course and decide to suit up for Bruce Arians for one more season.
Stroud’s report suggests that the evaluation Tampa Bay has done is more due diligence than anything else. Indeed, it’s unclear if Watson would waive his no-trade clause for the Browns — ESPN’s Kimberley A. Martin believes that he would not (Twitter link) — and it presently seems as if any other veteran passer that Cleveland might acquire this offseason (like Marcus Mariota or Mitchell Trubisky) would be brought in as competition for Mayfield, not as a replacement.
Still, it’s yet another indication that the Bucs have every intention of competing in 2022 and adding a legitimate starter to a QB room that currently features only 2021 second-rounder Kyle Trask.
The Buccaneers saw Ali Marpet retire and have their other two longtime interior offensive line starters — Ryan Jensen and Alex Cappa — on the cusp of free agency. Uncertain up front, the team retained one of its inside depth pieces Saturday.
Aaron Stinnie reached an agreement to stay with Tampa Bay, Jenna Laine of ESPN.com notes. A three-year Bucs backup, Stinnie is coming back on a one-year deal worth up to $2.5MM.
Entering the NFL as a UDFA out of Division I-FCS James Madison, Stinnie has only started one regular-season game in four seasons. After moving from Tennessee to Tampa in 2019, via waiver claim, Stinnie became a valuable part for the Bucs during their 2020 Super Bowl run. Cappa’s season-ending injury led to Stinnie playing the bulk of Tampa Bay’s playoff snaps opposite Marpet. Stinnie started the final three Bucs playoff games that year.
Marpet’s retirement and Cappa’s potential free agency exit make Stinnie, 28, a possible cheap alternative. He will have a chance to start in 2022, Laine adds. The Bucs want to re-sign Cappa, but the four-year starter appears poised to test the market.