It seems one follower of NFL football thinks Jamel Dean is toast.
And while this stenographer makes sense with his fact, he overlooked one major reality: The Bucs report for training camp in two weeks.
Ely Allen of Pro Football Rumors makes the case for the Bucs to shed the veteran corner. More to the point, Allen makes the case for shedding Dean’s salary.
To begin with, injuries have been starting to impact the 28-year-old lately. Now, Dean has never played every game in a season, missing at least two games each year, but 2023 saw Dean miss four games with neck, knee, and ankle issues and 2024 saw Dean miss five games, including four straight, with a hamstring issue and a knee injury. Ultimately, it’s understandable to a degree, given the nature of the sport, but as Dean’s salary ($12.5MM in 2025 and $13MM in 2026) and cap hit ($15.14MM in 2025 and $15.78MM in 2026) continue to increase each year of his second contract, those missed games hurt that much more.
That brings us to our second point to this theory. Dean’s second contract — a four-year, $52MM re-signing in 2023 — features a potential out after the 2024 season that would have allowed the team to terminate the deal with only $6.85MM of dead money and $8.29MM of cap savings. Now that we are post-June 1, that potential out looks even more tempting as it would leave Tampa Bay with only $2.28MM in dead money and $12.85MM in cap savings.
In the very next paragraph, Allen answers his own question by typing the Bucs need to make sure they can replace Dean. Duh.
And that’s why Dean will be on the roster this year.
“This Joe” has maintained — has all offseason and will continue to do so — that Dean is the best cornerback on the roster when he’s on the field (note that Joe did not type Dean is a Pro Bowler).
Rookies Jacob Parrish and Benjamin Morrison are complete unknowns. And how do you think two rookies will do if they’re coached up to be 12-15 yards off receivers at the snap?
The Bucs have plans to make a postseason run. Teams generally don’t seal that deal by unloading a guy like Dean, injury-prone or not, two weeks before training camp. If Dean was going to be a post-June 1 salary cap casualty, he likely would have been released around, you know, June 1.
Joe is sure Dean will get hurt. We all know this. We just don’t know when.
Then Morrison will replace Dean and when Dean returns, he might split time with Morrison. If, come the playoffs, Morrison appears up to the task, 2025 will end up being Dean’s final Bucs season unless he has his best year since the Bucs drafted him in 2019.
