TAMPA, Florida – Shaquil Barrett not only won a new four-year contract worth up to $ 72 million on Monday, but also received a $ 1.372 million franchise agreement arising from a complaint filed with the NFL Players Association on last year, a source told Adam Schefter of ESPN.
That money will count against the Bucs’ salary cap in 2021. There will be no complaint hearing, which would have been the next step. The Bucs chose to solve it and, in turn, Barrett can recover the lost gains.
The complaint stems from the fact that the NFL does not differentiate between external and internal linebackers when calculating the values of the franchise label, nor does it take into account the scheme. The franchise brand numbers are based on the top five salaries for each position.
Barrett is technically an external linebacker in the 3-4 scheme by defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, but his job is mainly to rush the passer, like the one on the defensive side 4-3, instead of falling into cover in the short passing game.
In 2020, the value of the franchise tag for linebackers was $ 15.828 million, while it was $ 17.788 million for defensive purposes.
A closer look at Barrett’s instant counts supports his argument.
In the past two seasons – including the 2020 postseason – Barrett played a total of 171 out of 1,851 snaps (9.238%) on the cover and 1,086 snaps (58.67%) running for the passer (the remaining 594 snaps were against the race ). In comparison, internal linebacker Lavonte David played a total of 1,342 snaps on the cover and 207 snaps rushing the passer.