Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Vincent Jackson worth the money?

Throughout the offseason, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been adamant that not only will they keep Vincent Jackson on the roster, but they won’t even ask him to take a paycut to reduce his $12.2 million cap hit and $9.8 million salary for the upcoming season. That rhetoric never changed, and the Tampa Bay Times’s Rick Stroud reported early this morning that the Buccaneers have indeed decided to keep V-Jax in the Bay at his full sticker price.

For most teams, keeping a 32-year-old receiver who isn’t one of the top ten players at the position at a $12.2 million cap hit would be ridiculous, but it’s reasonable for the Buccaneers to swallow that large cap charge. While Jackson isn’t a top ten receiver, he was once at that level during his time with the Bucs and has caught at least 70 receptions and 1,000 yards in each of his three seasons with the team despite poor quarterback play.

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The Buccaneers are guaranteed to draft a quarterback with the first overall pick in the draft, and the consensus is that Jameis Winston will be Lovie Smith and Jason Licht’s guy. With massive needs on the offensive line outside of stalwarts Logan Mankins and Demar Doston, the Bucs have to make sure Winston- or Marcus Mariota- has all the help he can get to have a successful rookie campaign (nobody wants a lost cause of a year a la Derek Carr‘s first season, which is impossible to evaluate due to the Oakland Raiders woeful lack of weapons).

With Jackson locked in to play for at least one more year in Tampa, the Bucs clearly won’t be bereft of weapons. Second-year pro Mike Evans is already arguably as good as V-Jax, and tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins could be a breakout star at the position waiting to happen, as the coaching staff has given him no shortage of praise.

Evans had the monster rookie season, but Jackson remains the Buccaneers most proven commodity and has been a consummate professional ever since signing a big-money contract to earn $11.1 million per season with the Bucs. Jackson has played through nagging injuries and suffered through subpar quarterback play without so much as a whimper on his part.

Even so, it’s hard to get past the idea that the Buccaneers will be losing $12.2 million against the cap to a single player, though it’s crucial to remember that they are one of the NFL’s few teams that can handle that sort of a cap charge. They were the worst team in the NFL last season and don’t have enough weapons as it is, they are in the market for a franchise quarterback via the draft, and they have a ridiculous amount of cap space; they can afford a season of paying Jackson that kind of money.

Since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have to make sure they keep the cupboard stocked for their rookie quarterback, they need to make sure they have all hands on deck for the QB’s first season in the league. In fact, it’s not about making sure they don’t set up the rookie to fail, it’s about making sure they set him up to succeed by ensuring those weapons are in place.

If Jackson’s contract becomes a burden in 2016, they can cut him following Winston or Mariota’s (hopefully successful) rookie campaign, and then they’ll have the ability to allocate resources to replacing Jackson.

At 6’5″ and blessed with more speed than most receivers of that size (though his sub-4.5 forty days are clearly over), Jackson is one of the league’s premier downfield threats, and it’s crazy to think that last season’s average of just 14.3 yards per reception (offensive line and Josh McCown-induced) was his career-low. Plenty of receivers would be proud to have that as their career average.

Based on what we saw in 2012 when he first joined the Buccaneers, Jackson is also surprisingly quick and versatile enough to create mis-matches in the slot, and that can be a valuable asset for either of the top quarterback prospects. Both have the arm strength to make use of Jackson’s frame, and both could use his jump-ball ability.

Dec 7, 2014; Detroit, MI, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Vincent Jackson (83) against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

Per Advanced Football Analytics, Vincent Jackson has never had a catch rate above 50% during his career with the Bucs, but it would be highly misleading to regurgitate this statistic in a conversation without the context of Jackson’s sky-high YPR totals, which yield consistent yards per target averages above seven.

The Bucs don’t really use Jackson as a safety valve, instead making him- and if this sounds purposefully paradoxical…it is- a reliable deep threat who can consistently average around 70 receiving yards per game.

Most teams would scoff at the notion of paying a receiver other than an A.J. Green-type enough to cost the team more than $12 million over the cap, but the Buccaneers are actually wise to embrace the idea of paying V-Jax in full. He’s proven to be a model receiver for the Bucs, producing well year-in and year-out despite lowly QB play, and the Buccaneers situation is very unique.

They are a bad team with plenty of cash and the need to keep every bit of talent on offense on the roster in order to cater to their next quarterback.

Their situation is an ideal one (if there was ever such a thing, of course) to devote a huge amount of cap to a single star receiver, because they can afford to pay him and possibly can’t afford to lose him due to their franchise’s situation.

Next: What could the Bucs receive for Glennon?

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