What Penei Sewell’s Contract Means For Tristan Wirfs

Tampa Bay’s stud left tackle is currently set to play 2024 on his fifth-year option of $18.244 million. He and the Bucs have been transparent that both sides are working towards an extension that will keep him in town for years to come. Most will say he should eclipse Sewell as the highest paid tackle in the league.

The comparable metrics bear that out as well.

How Much Will The Bucs Pay Tristan Wirfs?

The two have similar overall blocking grades with Tristan Wirfs being the superior pass protector while Sewell is the more dominant run blocker.

Penei Sewell has one less season under his belt than Wirfs after being selected seventh overall in 2021. Wirfs himself was also a first-round pick, selected 13th overall in 2020.

With the two remarkably similar in productivity it stands to reason that Wirfs will command a slightly bigger paycheck now that Sewell’s deal has been finalized. But how much bigger?

To answer that question some context is needed. At $28 million per year, Sewell’s APY (average per year) represents 10.96% of this year’s $255.4 million salary cap. And while that APY is the highest in the league for a tackle, it doesn’t quite make for the biggest investment in a tackle a team has made when considering resources available at the time of signing.

Williams is the high-water mark as a percent of cap, although his deal was in a Covid adjusted year where the salary cap had reduced from $198.2 million in 2020 to $182.5 million. The salary cap bounced back up to $208.2 million in 2022. If you take the midpoint of 2020 and 2022 ($203.2 million), Williams’ APY was really 11.3%. Wirfs should look to reset the market in both APY and as a percent of cap in year of signing.

If he was to push for a contract with an APY of 11.35% of this year’s cap the APY would come in right at $29 million per year, beating Williams’ adjusted percent of cap by 0.05% and Sewell’s APY by $1 million. The deal would satisfy everything he should be looking for. My best projection at this point is that it will be for four new years on top of 2024.

As for guarantees, Sewell’s deal is reportedly for $85 million in them. But that isn’t the fully guaranteed figure. It’s a rolling guaranteed structure that the Bucs will likely emulate. As for the fully guaranteed portion, I could see it coming in at around $25 million on top of this year’s salary.

That would be around $43.25 million total in full guarantees with. The rolling guarantees could come in the form of guaranteeing 2026’s salary if Wirfs was on the roster at the beginning of the 2025 season and the same with 2027’s base salary if he’s on the roster to begin the 2026 league year. That would put his rolling guarantees over four years at $85.75 million.

The Bucs and Wirfs were reportedly close to a deal before the Sewell extension was inked according to Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds. It may have been for an amount close to what I and Kyle DeDiminicantanio projected for AtoZ Sports last month.

Now it’s back to the drawing board to a certain degree. But the blueprints are there for a deal to be consummated soon. And the Bucs have a vested interest in ensuring it happens this offseason. Because 11.35% of next year’s assumed salary cap of $275 million is $31.25 million per year…