The Tampa Bay Buccaneers weren't going to let Doug Martin run off in NFL free agency. That much is clear now. Martin put together an impressive 2015 campaign, which also just so happened to coincide with the final year of his rookie pact. Keeping him was likely a priority all along for the Bucs and new head coach Dirk Koetter, but finding a way to make the money work for a guy who struggled through two down years, sandwiched between 1,400-yard campaigns, was always going to be tricky.
But Martin, the former first-round pick out of Boise State, clearly wanted to be in Tampa as much as the Glazer family and Koetter wanted him to stay, as the two sides came to an agreement on a contract with only a couple of hours to spare before the free agent market opened.
Martin's new deal is for five years and $35.75 million. It also has $15 million in guaranteed dollars and carries a max value of $42.5 million with incentives.
With a running back depth chart mostly devoid of established NFL talent beyond Martin - Charles Sims could develop into a back capable of carrying more of the load, but there's no guarantee of that - it left little in the way of palatable options for the Bucs. Of course, they could have - and may still - dip their own toes into the free agent running back waters, but keeping Martin, a known commodity around Tampa Bay was obviously the preference.
The most interesting part of the equation will be seeing how Martin responds now that he's gotten that big pay day. The guaranteed money in the deal, just $15 million, protects the Bucs to an extent, making it so that Martin has to stay on the field and perform well if he wants to see the life of the contract and some or all of that $35.75 million.
It's always questionable when a player with health and effort concerns performs well in a contract season, but for the Bucs there was likely little available on the open market that seemed more enticing than keeping their own player from scampering off. Maybe Chris Ivory or Bilal Powell, both formerly of the Jets, would have been intriguing options, but Powell is drawing interest from a number of teams, meaning there's likely something of a bidding war in effect for his services, and Ivory has apparently signed on in Jacksonville for a deal that carries a $6 million per season average.
In the end, the Bucs and Martin probably did what was best for both sides by agreeing to continue their marriage.
