Tampa Bay cuts some vets

[BallHawk]

I'd love to have Cato June.

[Guiness]

He played well against us. He made the ProBowl for the 200th time. He's still a player, but did slow a bit last year.

I agree with the move, if they are gonna change, they don't need DB.

Dallas, mebbe?

DB to Dallas instead of Ray-Ray?

I didn't say anything at first because I didn't know how much his play had dropped off (I saw very little football last year) but it seems posters here think he's still got something left.

So why did TB cut him??? Even if they want to go young, this guy is a leader, both on and off the field, with the dedication to film Patler talked about. If he'd dropped to the level of backup, he sure could show the new guys a lot while providing quality depth. And it's not like they needed the cap room.

As far as Dallas, Ray is playing in a 3-4, whereas Brooks would be a question mark until you found out if he could adjust. But if you were confident he was going to, I'd sure rather have Brooks in my locker room!

[Patler]

I did a little research. Brooks redid his contract in 2003 and again after 2006 to help the Bucs get under the salary cap. Apparently the 2006 change was very significant, and he actually gave up $ (like Leroy Butler did his last few years). He did not just re-categorize how it was paid to gain cap relief as you hear of so many doing. His salary cap # went from 10 million in 2005 and 7 in 2006, to less than 4 million in 2007 and 2008.

In 2006 he said he did it to help the Bucs, and so that they would not have to release him because he wanted to finish his career there, with his contract that ran through 2009.

[The Shadow]

Maybe Brooks would be interested in signing with us so he can "stick it to" the Bucs?

[Partial]

Surprised you all aren't in here saying good riddance to get rid of an effective veteran to replace him with an unproven younger player. Heaven forbid you keep a loyal, hard working, premiere player!!

[Patler]

Surprised you all aren't in here saying good riddance to get rid of an effective veteran to replace him with an unproven younger player. Heaven forbid you keep a loyal, hard working, premiere player!!

The last highly capable players of significance released by the Packers with years still available on their contracts were Mike Wahle and Darren Sharper, and both were for salary cap reasons. I can think of no other player released in a manner similar to Brooks. I guess you could count Bubba Franks, but his performance had dropped significantly, and he would have earned more than Brooks this season.

The Packers have kept or offered to keep in diminished roles many veteran players even after they were replaced by younger, better players. For examples, consider Henderson's last season, Franks' last season, KGB's last year and a half and Favre this season. The Bucs made no such offer with Brooks.

[channtheman]

deleted.