Tom Brady, in the past, was willing to take a pay cut in order to put his team in a better position to succeed.
Boomer Esiason believes the Buccaneers this offseason should see if the star quarterback would be open to it once again.
Tampa Bay last March signed Brady to a two-year deal worth a reported $50 million in guaranteed money. The Bucs are poised to be in a favorable salary-cap situation this spring, but it never hurts to free up some more dollars.
This could be achieved via a contract extension for Brady, which Esiason believes Tampa should pitch to its starting signal-caller after its season is over.
"As long as he doesn’t get hurt, and if the Bucs are smart, they would give him an extension to reduce the cap hit for next year so they can keep some of these players,” Esiason said Tuesday on "The Greg Hill Show," as transcribed by WEEI. "He has a lot of good players around him. They drafted Tristan Wirfs in the first round at tackle. They’ll most likely move him to left tackle next season, because he’s been really good at right tackle this season. As long as they can keep the running backs, Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette.
"He’s got a lot of really good players around him. If he can keep the group around him with the salary cap going down, and Tom has had a history of being able to do that and taking less money. I don’t know if he will, but I think it would be smart. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some sort of, maybe a one-year extension that would just lessen the cap hit for Tampa next year so they can keep some of these players."
The Bucs have a slew of key players headed for free agency, including Shaquil Barrett, Lavonte David, Ndamukong Suh and Fournette. A trio of Brady's pass-catchers, Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown, also are bound for the open market.
Tampa Bay will need every penny it can get its hands on if it wants to retain the majority of those players. In turn, TB12 could be amenable to reworking his contract to help ensure the Bucs are highly competitive once again next season.
