NFL Free Agency 2011: Buccaneers' Early Inactivity Could Come Back to Bite Them

Kiss Nnamdi Asomugha goodbye. He’s all but a New York Jet. Reggie Bush is headed to Miami, Robert Gallery is en route to Seattle, Doug Free is back in Dallas.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been busy, re-signing Quincy Black and inking draft picks Adrian Clayborn, Da’Quan Bowers and Mason Foster along with a slew of undrafted free agents.

But they still have money to spend.

The Buccaneers have been mentioned as a team likely to be active in free agency because of their initial $60 million salary cap shortfall. Since, they’ve focused on re-signing their own, and rightfully so.

Meanwhile, high-profile free agents have come off the board, and the Buccaneers may be doing themselves more harm than good by hesitating to partake in the free-agent frenzy.

Much of what the Buccaneers are required to spend to get close enough to the cap will be spent in house.

Black scored $29 million for five years. Foster gets $1.4 million guaranteed in the first two years of a four-year deal worth $2.784 million. Clayborn gets $8.2 million over four years as part of a fully guaranteed contract.

The Buccaneers will likely still throw a handful of cash at Davin Joseph and Cadillac Williams, and they should, but that probably won’t get them near the $108 million salary floor they must reach.

If Mark Dominik and Co. don’t get involved in free agency soon, the pool could become too shallow to dive into and they could find themselves over-spending for mediocre talent as the free-agent window closes.

What was once an enviable position becomes increasingly disadvantageous as the minutes pass and free agents continue agree to terms elsewhere.

To call the Buccaneers losers in free agency at this point would be foolhardy. But with guys like cornerback Jonathan Joseph still out there and opportunities to add depth to the offensive line abound, values to be had become fewer and farther between as days pass.

And they continue to pass. But will the Buccaneers?