Barrett: Tampa Bay Buccaneers Were 'Always Plan A' in Free Agency

"Tampa was always Plan A for me, for the team, but also for my family."

Shaq Barrett set out into the 2021 offseason with one goal in mind: Returning to Tampa Bay on a long-term contract.

He made that clear when speaking with the media on Wednesday, about 48 hours removed from agreeing to a four-year, $72 million deal with the Buccaneers that includes $36 million in total guarantees. There were some outside suitors for Barrett's services, but those teams never earned a chance to become substantial.

"Initially there was some interest from other teams building up, but as we got down to the nitty-gritty it wasn't too many calls coming through," Barrett said on Wednesday. "But I was always focused on being back here, there was nowhere else that I wanted to be."

Barrett returns to Tampa Bay after two productive seasons in which he proved to be one of the NFL's most disruptive pass rushers. Originally signing as competition for former second-round pick Noah Spence, Barrett exploded onto the Bay scene with a league-leading 19.5 sacks in 2019.

The 6-foot-2, 250-pound edge defender was quickly franchise tagged as an outside linebacker after his breakout season, although it was as an outside linebacker with a designated salary of $15.8 million. Barrett filed a grievance, but settled at $1.372 million with the Buccaneers amid negotiations and did not let it cloud his desire to rejoin the team.

"That was just like a sign of good faith on both sides, we didn't want to have to go all the way through with the grievance, so we was able to end up settling on a good number," said Barrett. "They knew they wanted to bring me back, so they didn't want to really have to go through all of that type of stuff, and I didn't want to go through it neither because I wanted to be here."

From there, it was all about Barrett's reward for two seasons of production on the edge for Tampa Bay. In 2020, Barrett compiled only eight sacks, but added another four in the NFC Championship and Super Bowl. He also racked up an NFL-leading 98 quarterback pressures.

The Bucs were able to create a deal that not only pays Barrett like one of the league's top edge rushers, but also carries a rather minimal cap hit of $5.6 million in the first year of the deal. At such a low hit for a big deal combined with quarterback Tom Brady's extension, Tampa Bay maintained the spending flexibility to retain other key contributors, namely linebacker Lavonte David, tight end Rob Gronkowski, and kicker Ryan Succop.

Tampa Bay still has players remaining to negotiate with, such as defensive end Ndamukong Suh and running back Leonard Fournette. The Buccaneers would like to return as many players as possible in hopes of a second consecutive Suoer Bowl championship.

"We had a great team and there's like, no reason to not want to try to bring it back and try to do it again, but do it even better this time," said Barrett. "Usually, teams win, they let people go and walk cause people will usually demand a higher salary than teams are willing to pay, but we made it work. We moved some stuff around, made some amazing deals with other guys who was free, and, man, like, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to get it done."