I suspect there'll be a 2021 Tompa Bay thread soonish, but knowing nothing about the Buccaneers' salary cap situation or player contracts or depth of roster or draft prospects, are they well-positioned to keep the core intact for another run next year or was this year largely an all-in push for one ring with the current personnel?
TB has quite a few free agents but do have some cap space. They'll have some decisions to make.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/buccaneers-draft-picks-cap-space-free-agents-2021-nfl-offseason
It's going to be tight for them. They only have 30 guys signed for next year right now so their current $38M in cap space per spotrac is pretty tenuous. Clearly, there will be restructurings and other things of that nature but they have a lot of key guys as UFA:
Shaq Barrett
Lavonte David
Gronk
Suh
Fournette
AB
Godwin
I think Godwin is surely a goner. Barrett might be as well since somebody is going to throw him major money. I could see Gronk, Suh, Fournette, AB running it back for reasonable money. Next year's team won't be as talented as this year's team but it should still be pretty good.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2021/
The tradition, Patriots excepted, has been that losing Super Bowl teams typically have rough years the year after losing, while winners have had a better track record.I went with 2. KC is well-positioned to stay in the hunt for the next few seasons and their star players have taken very team-friendly deals (thus far). I can see them winning a few more, but they can also start to fall back to the pack a bit. Kelce is the same age as Gronk, and while he has the MUCH cleaner injury history, at some point the cumulative total of all those collisions will start to exact a toll. He's the engine of that receiving group, so if he slows down, there will be ripple effects. The OL is going to have to be rebuilt, which is easier said than done. Frank Clark has a monster contract but is coming off (for him) a so-so year. Blip, or is he starting a decline? Mathieu has a $20m cap hit in 2021, so something will need to happen there. How much do they want to invest into his 30s? Who knows how long Reid wants to coach or what happens when he leaves.
There's a ton of talent, and it begins with Mahomes, so they obviously aren't going anywhere any time soon. But they're going to run into the same problems that pop up for every would-be dynasty; to date NE is the only team that was able to keep it going.
So will either team be back?