The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have to do something about their cap situation soon if they want to sign all their draft picks.
As it stands, the Buccaneers currently have $1,468,391 in cap space, the lowest in the NFL according to the NFLPA Public Salary Cap Report. The next-lowest team is the Minnesota Vikings, who have had cap troubles of their own, at $2,168,507.
When draft picks are immediately brought to a team, they count for $750,000 in cap space. Because only a team’s 51 highest-paid players count toward the cap until the official start of the regular season, those draft picks won’t immediately affect a team’s cap space — until they sign their deals, which is when it’ll become a problem.
There’s no definitive number, but it’s likely that around $2 million in cap space (plus or minus) would be enough to sign Tampa Bay’s draft picks. The Bucs are around $550,000 out from that number either way, so the team will have to make some changes. This will likely come in the form of contact reworks for guys like Mike Evans and Shaquil Barrett, among others.