Rich: Why the Buccaneers Were Wise to Extend Pro Bowl DT Vita Vea before Week 1

Vita Vea's back got better the instant his bank account did, and nobody involved is pretending otherwise.

One of the first shots fired on the contractual front this offseason came out of Tampa, when Vea asked for a new deal, did not get one, and demanded a trade. What followed was the modern version of a holdout, which is to say he showed up and stood around at practice. Holding out barely happens anymore, as Rich explained, because it hands the team an easy line. The coach says he can only talk about the guys who are here. The general manager says nothing can really get done until he comes in. And then there are the fines.

So the hold-in happens instead. Rich reached for the Rodney Dangerfield bit from "Caddyshack," the "ooh, my arm" defense. For Vea it was his back, which is the perfect injury for this exercise. There is no cast for a back. You say you have a bad back, you have a bad back. It is the same reason everyone raised an eyebrow at Christian McCaffrey's tightness in San Francisco, which surfaced right after Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson signed deals that doubled what McCaffrey is making this year, even though his extension made him one of the richest running backs ever when he signed it.

Then Todd Bowles stepped to the podium as word filtered out that Vea had his new contract, and he was asked how the rehab on the back was coming.

"He should be good to go next week."

Miraculous. The deal is a one-year extension worth $30 million, with $6 million in new money this season, and that pesky trade demand evaporated on contact.

Vea's own framing was more diplomatic. "I always wanted to be a Buc. And I wanted to be a Buc for life. And so I'm glad that we were able to get this done," he said. "It's something that happens every year. Just so happened to be me this year."

Everything except the part where he asked to be traded, Rich cracked, before making the serious point. Negotiations get personal because they have no choice but to get personal. Sometimes you get angry, sometimes you just wait it out, and cooler heads eventually prevail.

Tampa did not really have an option here. Without Vea in the middle of that defense, the Buccaneers are not nearly as good, and everything that works on that side of the ball works because of what he does up front. Everybody knew it. They could not walk into the season without him.

Vea also went out of his way to defend his head coach, whose seat gets discussed every summer in Tampa. "I feel like none of it is Bowles' fault. And I feel like we all love Bowles. You can ask every player in the locker room," he said. "He's giving us all the answers to the test, and it's on us players to be able to go out there and execute. If anything, blame us players for not executing." Then the kicker: "I even told Bowles that the day he retires is the day I retire."

He is the quarterback of that defense. The actual quarterback of the team, Baker Mayfield, keeps saying the Buccaneers are going to surprise a lot of people, which is a curious thing to say about a team holding the same division odds the Lions hold in the North.