The time has finally arrived as the Bucs and Tristan Wirfs have finally consummated their extension talks with a five-year, $140.63 million contract. The deal makes Wirfs the highest paid offensive lineman in football. His deal edges out Lions right tackle Penei Sewell, who signed a four-year, $112 million extension earlier this year, in average per year by $125k per year.

Some might say that resetting the market means that Wirfs “won” the deal, but many of the details show that the Bucs are getting some team-friendly terms. Ultimately, the contract is, in typical Jason Licht/Mike Greenberg fashion – a “win-win” for both sides.

Fifth-Year Major Point Of Contention For Bucs

As I wrote last week, beyond APY (average per year), length of contract can be a major roadblock to negotiations of large contracts. Players prefer shorter deals while teams often want longer length to deals. From the team perspective the additional years carry three benefits. First, they allow for longer prorations on live years (as opposed to void years, creating dead cap) of upfront bonuses from a cap perspective.

Secondly, the final years of most 3+ year contracts usually do not contain guaranteed salaries. This effectively gives the team contract options. If the player continues to play well the final years of the deal can often amount to team-friendly salaries as the NFL salary cap continues to rise at 5-10% per year.

Finally, since this was a contract extension, the effective APY of the deal is actually less than the $28.125 million it is being reported as. From a contract perspective the deal is created as a new deal that is six years (the five-year extension on top of the one year left on Wirfs’ rookie contract). The $140.63 million gets added to the $18.244 million salary he was due for 2024. The total deal is six years and $158.874 million. That comes to $26.479 million per year.

In talking with sources, we at Pewter Report can confirm that the fifth year was, in fact, a major sticking point for the team for the reasons above.

Tristan Wirfs Deal Not Tops In A Critical Contextual Category

While Tristan Wirfs is now the highest paid offensive lineman from both an APY and total value perspective, there is a much more important measurement that shows the Bucs actually got tremendous value on the deal. Looking at just the new money his $28.125 million APY represents 11.01% of this year’s $255.4 million salary cap.

Per Over The Cap that will rank fifth among all offensive line contracts since the 2011 collective bargaining agreement.

1. Trent Williams 2021 (12.6% of that year’s salary cap)
2. David Bakhtiari 2020 (11.6%)
3. Laremy Tunsil 2020 (11.1%)
4. Laremy Tunsil 2023 (11.1%)

Wirfs’ 28.126 APY is 11.01% of the cap at signing which ranks 7th most all time, but still falls behind both Tunsil extensions and the Bakhtiari extension in terms of APY as % of cap at signing. https://t.co/vpH4DsuwKz

— Daniel Salib (@salibdaniel1) August 1, 2024

Effectively, this means the Bucs aren’t using up as much of their financial resources.

There are still more details regarding this contract to come in the future and I’ll write about them when they become available. But until then it is safe to say both the Bucs and Wirfs got specific things they wanted out of this now-record contract, setting up what Jason Licht has spoken about many times before.

And that is a deal that is right for both sides.