Talks between the Buccaneers and Vita Vea appear to be moving in a better direction.
That was the read from ESPN’s Adam Schefter during an interview on The Pat McAfee Show, where he said the mood around the situation has changed noticeably. “It feels like we’ve gone from a tone of pessimism, to one where there’s potential optimism,” Schefter said. “It feels like we’ve gone from Vita Vea wanting a trade to Vita Vea now wanting to get a deal done.”
Schefter also said he believes there’s a route for Tampa Bay and Vea to settle things in the next few weeks before the season begins.
Vea has been holding in at Buccaneers training camp while pushing for a new contract in the final year of his deal. According to his camp, he will not play without either a new contract or a trade.
For a while, Tampa Bay hadn’t engaged with Vea’s camp on an extension at all, and the veteran apparently took that personally. The Buccaneers, for their part, had been willing to wait him out and let him miss practice with Week 1 still far away. That cushion is getting smaller now.
There has been plenty of trade interest in Vea, but Tampa Bay has turned away every caller so far.
The veteran defensive tackle is currently on a deal that averages $17.75 million per year, which ranks him No. 19 among the league’s highest-paid interior linemen.
Vea, 31, entered the league as a first-round pick by the Buccaneers in 2018. Tampa Bay exercised his fifth-year option, which cost the team $7.638 million fully guaranteed for the 2022 season.
He later landed a four-year, $71 million extension with the Buccaneers, and the team opened up roughly $9 million by turning much of his $12.5 million base salary for 2023 into a bonus.
He is set to earn a base salary of 17,000,000 in 2026.
In 2025, Vea played in all 17 games for Tampa Bay and finished with 34 tackles, seven tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks, two pass defenses and one fumble recovery.
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