Players retained by necessity (dead money): $60+ million.
Evans, Marpet, Jensen, Hargreaves, Vea, Howard, Jones, Stewart, Davis, Evans.
These players would add significant dead money to the cap if you cut them.
Players retained/re-signed by choice (little dead money) $100+ million.
That's not including new players.
Winston, Pierre Paul, McCoy, Brate, David, Allen, Dotson, Benenoch Goldson, Barber, Santos, etc. These players could have been dispensed with with little or no cap penalty.
Myth: Arians wants to tell Licht to make big changes, but they can't because they are cap-strapped. So they can only do little things. They are stuck with Licht's mistakes of the past because of the contracts.
Reality: Arians came here because he doesn't want to be heavily involved in the personnel side. He doesn't want to shop for his own groceries for the most part. He knew and trusted Licht to do his job. Thats why he took the Bucs job. Licht is in charge. Licht has been building this roster, and he's keeping it basically intact by choice, not by necessity. Licht wants to finish what he started, not start over.
Myth: The Bucs can't make wholesale changes.
Reality: They don't want to.
