At one point, a lot of people were wondering about Jamel Dean's immedaite future with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Bucs needed to create some cap space ahead of free agency and based off Dean's contract, which is in its penultimate year, Jason Licht would've opened up nearly $8.3 million by releasing the former third-round pick.
The reasons for a potential release were simple: Dean is injured on a far-too-often basis and the ball production simply isn't there for a guy who's supposed to be the No. 1 cornerback on an NFL defense. Especially one as aggressive as Todd Bowles' defense.
Now that the bulk of free agency has passed, it's likely that Dean's spot on the 53-man roster is safe. His starting job, however, doesn't sound as near as safe when listening to what Bowles told reporters on Tuesday.
"Everybody’s position is up for grabs. I think Zyon [McCollum] is probably 1A, 1B because Zyon stayed healthier during the year," Bowles said at the NFL's Annual League Meeting. "Dean has to get healthy. He comes in and he plays – he can’t play half a year, every couple of years. He understands he has to stay healthy and he’s doing everything he can to be healthy, but we have to have some depth there just in case. If somebody comes in and competes with him, he’s going to have to compete.”
Dean has never played a full season since he was drafted back in 2019. He's missed 13 regular season games over the last four years and he's played less than 50% of defensive snaps in an additional nine. On top of that, he left the Bucs' last two playoff games early and both ended up as losses.
And just put it this way when it comes to his eight career interceptions: Janoris "Jackrabbit" Jenkins, a guy who hasn't played since 2022, has the same amount of picks as Dean since 2019.
He's gotta step it up in both categories and while he's still on the roster, that can quickly change at any moment. Once June 1 passes, the Bucs can open up more than $12.8 million by trading or releasing Dean.
Let's say a guy like Will Johnson falls to the Bucs and beats Dean out for the starting job. Sure, the depth would be great to have, but paying a guy $13 million to primarily sit on the bench doesn't seem like a good use of resources. Odds are the 28-year-old gets shipped off for a 2026 draft pick. Either way, there's certainly a world where this is possible.
"That’s crystal clear – we don’t have a lot of depth," Bowles said of the current cornerback room. "We hope to address that at some point in the draft, as well. We didn’t sign many in free agency. We signed [Kindle] Vildor and we signed Bryce [Hall] – he’s coming off an injury and we’ve got to see what Vildor can do, obviously. We’re going to address that in the draft.”
The Bucs are simply being good bosses, at the end of the day. If you don't tell your employees where they need to improve - how can you expect them to get better at what they do? It gets even more unfair if you fire them for lack of production later on after failing to communicate and outline their deficiencies.
"Jamel, he's had some injuries the last couple years," Licht told reporters Monday. "He was a really good player not too long ago. He has high expectations for himself, we have high expectations for him, and we feel good about Jamel."
Dean is definitely a good player when he's healthy, even with the lack of ball production. But it's obvious he's going to have to make some big changes in 2025 or else he's looking at a change in scenery no later than 2026.
