Chris Godwin’s new contract has no exceptions for his ankle damage

After the Buccaneers chosen Ohio State receiver Emeka Egbuka with the nineteenth decide within the 2025 draft, some assumed that the Bucs had been involved about veteran receiver Chris Godwin’s availability for the beginning of the season.

If the crew has such considerations, these considerations didn’t make their approach into the three-year, $66 million contract Godwin signed with the Buccaneers in March.

PFT has obtained and reviewed the contract. There’s no language relating to the damage. Nothing that, for instance, circumstances any of the $20.745 million 2025 roster bonus on passing a bodily. (The second and remaining installment is due in six days.) Nothing that creates an exception for any aggravation of the damage or associated situation.

Perhaps the Bucs had no selection, provided that Godwin had a greater monetary provide on the desk from the Patriots. And whereas the Patriots finally signed receiver Stefon Diggs to a deal containing protections for the crew in opposition to his torn ACL, Diggs didn’t have many (or possibly any) different choices. Godwin probably was in a position to leverage the curiosity of the Patriots and Buccaneers right into a deal that didn’t defend the crew in opposition to the damage that predated the contract.

Nonetheless, the contract turns into an essential piece of tangible proof to counter the notion that the Bucs drafted Egbuka as a result of they’re involved about Godwin’s well being. In the event that they had been sufficiently involved to make use of a first-round decide on his short-term substitute, why would they’ve dedicated $44 million in ensures to Godwin?

So why Egbuka? Effectively, Mike Evans is coming into his twelfth season, and he’ll be 32 in August. They’ll must have a substitute able to go, in some unspecified time in the future.

Apart from, the Bucs don’t precisely have many urgent roster wants. They had been in a position to take the very best accessible participant after they had been on the clock. Which they did.