Going into the 2016 season, Bradley McDougald and Chris Conte were the Bucs’ two starting safeties. When the season was over, both were scheduled to become free agents, and with the emergence of Keith Tandy as the starting free safety, the future of both McDougald and Conte in Tampa Bay became unclear.
When Conte signed his new two-year, $5 million dollar deal in the early hours of free agency, and with the Bucs following that by signing Cowboys safety J.J. Wilcox, McDougald became the odd man out and will not be returning in 2017.
The #Seahawks are signing former #Bucs S Bradley Mcdougald to a 1-year deal worth $2M, source said. Increased depth there for SEA
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 22, 2017
McDougald, who went undrafted in 2013, has been with the Buccaneers for the last four years. In 2014, when the Bucs traded their former first round pick Mark Barron to the Rams, that opened the door for McDougald to get major playing time. Since then, he’s gone from a back up safety to starting safety, and ended the 2016 season as the team’s primary strong safety opposite Keith Tandy.
McDougald signed a 1-year, $2 million dollar deal for the Seahawks.
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About the Author: Trevor Sikkema
I guess I’m a little flabbergasted by this signing – meaning I don’t understand why this happened. My understanding of the turn of events is that the Bucs did not fail here. They attempted to resign McDougald before the start of free agency according to the Tampa Bay Times. Here is the contract McDougald played under last year. Bradley McDougald signed a 1 year, $2,553,000 contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, including an average annual salary of $2,553,000 per Spotrac. I assume the Bucs at least offered to renew that contract or would have presumably offered more this year based… Read more »
Like you said at the end, I think he thought he was worth more. Before he knew it there was no music and all the seats were taken.
*ding ding ding*
Trevor, I’m the guy with the negative vote here. It doesn’t make since for me. We could have signed McDougald for 2.75 a year for two years and guaranteed it for the first year. Something else is there beside what you are “ding,ding,ding” about. We may never know because the Bucs might know something else about McDougald.
The difference between the two contracts is $197,000. This isn’t rounding up or asking for a tic-tac here. This is a 7.7% increase. Wouldn’t be the first time deals weren’t struck on this margin, nor the last.
Good luck to him.
GO BUCS
Aptly put David DeLeon. McDougald proved ehat a miserable pick and NFL safety Barron was.
This draft is deep at safety also, another reason not to over pay an average one. What surprised me is they valued Conte more. Conte might be slightly better, but I think that gets offset by his injury history. We read a lot about Chris loosing his job at years end, but I think his chest injury played more into that then what the Bucs believe his ability actually is. At any rate, think the Bucs believe they can draft one this year who has more up side then what Bradley has shown, who will be under a longer, cheaper… Read more »
I just don’t get this. Why would the Bucs pay 5 million for Conte and not be willing to pay McDougald for say 2.75 million unless his agent didn’t even give the Bucs a call back to make a better and final offer? Both are about the same as to talent. Just my opinion.
We’ll never be told why – teams never do that, and players and their agents never do that unless they’re being dumb. It’s a private business matter.
The Bucs made their offers based on their perception of player value and where they want to be as a team.
Get over it, Horse. Much bigger things to be focused on this year.
Conte got a big raise though? I’ll move on, nothing i can do about it anyway.
Personally I thought he was hot and cold!
Good luck to him.
I like McDoog, and Im sure the Bucs brass did too, but in the end, they liked Wilcox better. Im sure Mc Doog thought he would get more on the market than his demand ended up being.
Horse, it’s because. Jason Licht was on the grassy knoll. He was also hanging out with Ted. Cruz’s dad in New Orleans.
Licht is also known to wiretap certain New York city addresses.
Crafty guy that Licht
He even arranged a date for his friend Monica with a certain president.
He can take his 4.74 40yard dash with him to Seattle. (Even I’m faster than this..)
Luckily, I think drew Brees Matt Ryan and cam newtons 2018 QBR will lose a few points after this transaction.
Almost always taking bad pursuit angles leading to bad tackling technique..slow and can’t cover TE’s. this guy was Sean jones 2.0.
draft a safety and get it over with. Or call tanard Jackson smh
No big loss. Average at best safety wanting better than average pay. Nothing complicated about this. Tandy and Conte are better. We need to draft for back up and future still for sure. Go Bucs!
I think it’s pretty clear that the organization thinks less of McDougald than perhaps we knew. Never anything special. Did OK for an undrafted free agent.
LOL, Scubog. I don’t think that President ever needed any help picking up chicks. He was a chick magnet like JFK except Bill seemed to be drawn to the skankier ones, although Monika wasn’t the trailer trash type.
I think you hit the nail square on the head deezenuts.
As I said before, the fact McDougald beat out Barron for the starting safety job where he actually did play better than our former 1st round pick just proved how bad that selection was.
Adding Wilcox and bringing back McDougald on the same terms as Conte would have been the safe way to go given the cap space the Bucs have, the injuries the Bucs have faced with Conte and the uncertainties of the draft. Maybe a safety will look like the best player available when the Bucs have a pick in the first few rounds. Maybe the pick is not a bust for the Bucs like a first round pick who ended up going to another team before he found the niche he has succeeded in. And, maybe injuries do not force the… Read more »
Not sure y we let him go with our cap space. Our safeties played well down the stretch last year and signing Conte seemed like a lower priority than McDougald. Maybe the team sees more in JJ Wilcox. I hope they’re right, they’ve been right more than they’ve been wrong as of late so I have faith that this team will get better