Buccaneers OLB Shaq Barrett: “I Feel Like It’s Time For Me To Break The Bank”

Buccaneers OLB Shaquil Barrett is one of a number of pending free agents Tampa Bay has to deal with this offseason. While some might consider a discount to play with Tom Brady and go after another Super Bowl, Barrett sounds like that might not be the case for him. 

“I’m most definitely looking forward to getting a long-term deal done…” Barrett told Adam Schein on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio via NFL Media’s Kevin Patra. “I feel like it’s time for me to break the bank now, and I most definitely want to do that to be able to set my family up better and most definitely going to keep producing, so it’s not like anything is going to fall off.”

Tampa Bay placed the franchise tag on Barrett this past season after he broke out with 19.5 sacks in 2019. His sack total dropped to eight in 2020 but he added four more in the postseason and was a terror in the Super Bowl. 

“I still think I got a lot left in the tank,” Barrett added. “I’m still getting better, actually. I’m still learning, like just still learning, like week in, week out. And there’s like, as you can see as the season progressed like … I ended the season playing the way that I wanted to play. And you can see that I did progress throughout the season, and I’m still progressing.”

Franchising Barrett again would cost around $19 million for the Buccaneers and he’s likely looking for around that amount per year in a long-term deal. And he hasn’t ruled out the Buccaneers if they’re willing to cut a check. 

“I mean, I do still want to have a great fit for me and a great fit for the family,” Barrett said. “So whatever that, like, that turns out to be. But I do want, I want to be, I want to be here. I think we got a great team here, a great organization here. So we will definitely go on just to see how it works out and shake up. But, I’m looking forward to trying to get something done here.”

Barrett, 28, signed with the Broncos as an undrafted free agent out of Colorado State in 2014. He was waived coming out of the preseason and re-signed to Denver’s practice squad. 

After bouncing back and forth between the practice squad and active roster, Barrett landed on the active roster at the end of his rookie year. Barrett signed with the Buccaneers as an unrestricted free agent in 2019 to a one-year, $4 million deal and was franchised this past offseason. 

In 2020, Barrett has appeared in 15 games for the Buccaneers and recorded 57 tackles, eight sacks, two forced fumbles and three passes defended.

We have him included in our Top 50 – 2021 Free Agents list.