Tristan Wirfs contract projection: What will Bucs need to re-sign Pro Bowler?

The Buccaneers have very real, pressing matters in free agency, with quarterback Baker Mayfield, receiver Mike Evans and safety Antoine Winfield all mere weeks away from hitting the open market.

Their front-office focus, understandably, is fixed there right now, but at some point in the next year, there's a strong chance that Tampa Bay will make Tristan Wirfs the highest-paid offensive tackle in the NFL.

Wirfs, 25, has been a star since his rookie year, when he played every snap in 20 games in a Super Bowl championship season. He has made the Pro Bowl in each of the past three years, and in 2021, he became the first offensive lineman in Bucs history to earn first-team All-Pro honors from the Associated Press. If that weren't enough, after three years as a right tackle, he made the daunting shift to left tackle last season and still finished as the league's fifth highest-graded player at the position by Pro Football Focus.

So how much might a new deal for Wirfs be worth? His NFL earnings to date have been fairly modest, earning $16.2 million in four years after being taken with the 13th overall pick in 2020. The Bucs have exercised his fifth-year option for the upcoming season, which will pay him $18.2 million, more than doubling his career earnings in one year. 

There's a good chance the guaranteed money on his next deal will double his career earnings through five years.

NFL draft picks are eligible for extensions after three seasons, so there's already a model for a tackle drafted in 2020 in the Giants' deal with Andrew Thomas last summer: five years and $117.5 million, including $67 million guaranteed. Thomas earned that without so much as a single Pro Bowl or All-Pro nod, with just two playoff games in his time with New York, so Wirfs' deal will certainly exceed it.

The highest-paid tackle in the league on a per-year basis is the Texans' Laremy Tunsil, who signed a three-year, $75 million extension with Houston, good for $25 million a year. That's probably the starting point for any Wirfs deal, resetting the league high both for annual payout and Thomas' overall guarantee.

The general practice is to add the new contract after the fifth-year option, so even if Wirfs signs this summer, a four-year extension would cover the 2025 through 2028 seasons, taking him up to his age-29 season. There's a decent chance he could stay the league's highest-paid tackle for a while; the most compelling challengers to overtake him are a pair of 2021 first-round picks, both eligible for extensions now, in the Lions' Penei Sewell and the Vikings' Christian Darrisaw. In general, elite tackles don't make it to the open market — this year's free-agent class might not have a tackle get more than $15 million a year, perhaps led by the Cowboys' Tyron Smith, who is 33.

So if we're throwing out a big number, we'll target four years and $108 million, which works out to $27 million a year, and fully guarantee the first two years. Add that to the 2024 salary and he'll have $72 million in guarantees, a record for an offensive tackle. Spotrac, which tracks NFL contracts, has Wirfs' "market value" assessed at four years and $102 million, which would still top Tunsil's deal as the top-paid tackle. Spotrac projects Darrisaw at four years, $99 million and Sewell at four years, $90 million.

In theory, the Bucs could add a fifth year — still not guaranteed, but making it easier to convert base salary to bonus for salary-cap relief without having to use "void years" that can backload a contract too much. But even at four years, let's put $108 million in perspective: That would put Wirfs at $142 million in career earnings if he finished the deal, still not even 30 years old. Evans, who is 30, just became the highest-paid Bucs player in career earnings this season, his $110.4 million surpassing the $110.1 million earned by defensive tackle Gerald McCoy. Evans might not be done getting paychecks in Tampa, but it's still impressive.

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Such an honor would be well-deserved for Wirfs, rare in Bucs history as a long-term asset at one of the league's most valued and well-compensated positions. The franchise hasn't truly had an entrenched, long-term quarterback in its history, and Evans is arguably the team's best offensive player to play a full career in Tampa. The team's five Hall of Famers, all on defense, all played too early to register the kind of nine-figure career earnings that today's stars can get in one big extension.

So at some point, perhaps even this offseason, the Bucs will lock up Wirfs with a huge, well-deserved payday. He and Winfield came in together and won a Super Bowl as rookies, ushering in the current ongoing run of sustained success that stands in stark contrast to what preceded them — 12 straight seasons of missing the playoffs. The Bucs are the only team in the NFC that can boast four straight playoff appearances, and Wirfs will be a core part of the effort to keep that streak going in 2024 and beyond.

Greg Auman is FOX Sports' NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.