Vita Vea Wants Out of Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers Just Put His Face on the Stadium Anyway.
Vita Vea wants a new contract or a new team. Tampa Bay just painted his face on Raymond James Stadium.
The Buccaneers unveiled the fourth and final of their four player murals on the corner of the stadium over the weekend, and Vea was one of them. It is the kind of move a franchise makes when they are absolutely, publicly, permanently not trading a player. The message could not be more obvious.
The player is not interested in the mural. Vea is deep into a hold-in during training camp, has demanded a trade, and has “zero” intention to play under his current deal or without a new team. He is set to earn $18 million this season in the final year of the four-year extension he signed in 2022. That is fine money in a vacuum. It is nowhere close to the top of the defensive tackle market anymore.
Since Vea signed that deal, Chris Jones, Aaron Donald, Quinnen Williams, and now Dexter Lawrence have all reset the market. The going rate for a top-tier interior lineman is roughly $28 million to $32 million per year with big guarantees. Vea, who has been a Pro Bowler and one of the most consistent run-stuffers in the league, is looking at his contemporaries and saying “I want that number.”
Tampa Bay’s response so far is that they see him as a foundational piece. They also see him as a foundational piece under his current deal. The Bucs have not budged on an extension, and they have not entertained trade offers even though multiple teams have reportedly called about him.
This is going to end one of two ways.
Option one is Vea sits out into the regular season and forces the Bucs to either fine him into oblivion or blink and give him a new deal. That path is ugly for both sides. Vea loses game checks, the Bucs lose their best interior defender, and the whole thing turns into a soap opera every Sunday morning until they close a deal in Week 5 or Week 6.
Option two is Tampa Bay eventually accepts that they have to trade him. If they wait too long and Vea shows up out of shape or the standoff spirals into open acrimony, they lose leverage on the trade market. The right move, if they are going to trade him at all, is to do it now while training camp is still young and other teams have salary cap flexibility to absorb the deal.
The mural argues that Tampa Bay is not going anywhere near option two. That is either genuine confidence that they can close a deal, or it is the front office telling itself a story that has not yet caught up to reality.
Vita Vea is 30 years old. Interior defensive tackles do not have infinite runway. He has one more chance to cash in on the peak of his career, and he clearly knows it.
The Bucs can paint whatever they want on the building. The negotiation is going to happen anyway.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
