{"id":187363,"date":"2025-07-07T03:06:52","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T03:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/187363\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T03:06:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T03:06:52","slug":"release-candidate-jamel-dean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/187363\/","title":{"rendered":"Release Candidate: Jamel Dean"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buccaneers cornerback Jamel Dean<\/a> has enjoyed an impressive career in Tampa Bay. Since the team drafted him out of Auburn in the third round of the 2019 draft, Dean has been a consistent, impactful presence in the Buccaneers\u2019 secondary, starting 63 games in 82 appearances while recording eight interceptions, 52 passes defensed, and 313 tackles. He even won a Super Bowl in his second year with the team. Even so, it stands to reason that Dean\u2019s time in pewter and red (and occasionally Creamsicle orange) may be coming to an end. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To begin with, injuries have been starting to impact the 28-year-old lately. Now, Dean has never played every game in a season, missing at least two games each year, but 2023 saw Dean miss four games with neck, knee, and ankle issues and 2024 saw Dean miss five games, including four straight, with a hamstring issue and knee injury. Ultimately, it\u2019s understandable to a degree, given the nature of the sport, but as Dean\u2019s salary ($12.5MM in 2025 and $13MM in 2026) and cap hit ($15.14MM in 2025 and $15.78MM in 2026) continue to increase each year of his second contract, those missed games hurt that much more.<\/p>\n

That brings us to our second point to this theory. Dean\u2019s second contract \u2014 a four-year, $52MM re-signing in 2023 \u2014 features a potential out after the 2024 season that would have allowed the team to terminate the deal with only $6.85MM of dead money and $8.29MM of cap savings. Now that we are post-June 1, that potential out looks even more tempting as it leaves Tampa Bay with only $2.28MM in dead money and $12.85MM in cap savings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In order to cut a starter like Dean, though, they should be confident that they can replace him, which makes it interesting to go back and see that the Buccaneers utilized two Day 2 picks on second-round Notre Dame cornerback Benjamin Morrison and third-round Kansas State cornerback Jacob Parrish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Morrison was garnering plenty of first-round buzz before suffering a season-ending hip injury<\/a> in mid-October. His film from his freshman and sophomore campaigns \u2014 showing fluidity, vision, and big play ability \u2014 was enough to land him in the second round. Parrish is an extremely quick and twitchy cornerback with balance and physicality that make him play bigger than his actual size. When matched up against the Heisman-winning, No. 2 overall pick Travis Hunter<\/a>, Parrish limited him to three catches for 26 yards and no touchdowns.<\/p>\n

If all that\u2019s been laid out here comes to pass, and the Buccaneers part ways with the veteran of six years, Dean should be fine. He\u2019s only two years removed from having earned a significant second contract, and at 28, he still has plenty of tread on his tires. Not to mention, any team lucky enough to have a hole at cornerback and a healthy chunk of available cap would be getting a cornerback who has never ranked lower than 26th (he averages around 16th over six seasons) in Pro Football Focus\u2019 position rankings (subscription required<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Buccaneers may very well intend for Dean to see his contract through, or perhaps they may even restructure the deal or extend him on new terms. He\u2019s been a consistent, impactful presence and could be for years to come. But should they want to improve their cap space<\/a> from an admittedly healthy $26.63MM, per OvertheCap.com, to $39.48MM, moving them from 14th in the NFL to fourth, this would be a potential option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buccaneers cornerback Jamel Dean has enjoyed an impressive career in Tampa Bay. Since the team drafted him out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,7,7343,6,4442,35825,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-187363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jamel-dean","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-pfr-originals","13":"tag-release-candidate","14":"tag-tampa-bay","15":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","16":"tag-tampabay","17":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114809749138206892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}