How to build a Seahawks Super Bowl winning roster
By Andy Excell
How did Tampa do it?
As I go through each of the past five years’ Super Bowl-winning rosters, I will outline how much they paid in each area of the roster and what percentage of the starting rosters’ salary equated to using figures from Spotrac.com.
Tom Brady
The Bucs paid Brady $25 million for last season. This is the highest salary a Super Bowl-winning QB has been paid in the last five seasons and equated to 16.3% of the starter’s salary on their roster.
So given that this is the high point salary-wise for a QB, and it was for the widely acclaimed GOAT, this strongly indicates that paying more than this is not advisable and is likely to actually reduce your chances of Super Bowl glory.
Running backs
The Bucs paid Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette a grand total of $4 million last season or 2.7% of the starting salaries.
Wide receivers and tight ends
Amazingly considering the firepower they had at their disposal in the passing game, it only cost them $19.3 in salaries or 12.6% of the starting salaries overall for Evans, Godwin, Brown, Gronk and Brate.
Offensive line
The starting five offensive linemen for the Bucs last season had a total salary of $32.5 million. So recognizing they have a QB who is not renowned as a runner and also have non-star RBs in the backfield, they shrewdly spent 21.2% of their starting salaries protecting said QB and blocking for the if-you-like economy RBs.
Defensive front seven
This is where the Bucs really spent big, and boy did it pay off come Super Bowl time. The starting defensive linemen and linebackers cost a combined $62.8 million in salaries or 41% of the starter’s salaries.
Defensive secondary
Contrary to the defensive front where the Bucs were the biggest spenders of the last five Super Bowl Champions, their spending on the secondary was the lowest of the five at just $5.7 million or 3.7% of the starting salaries.
Kicker and Punter
These cost the Bucs $3.8 million which equated to a humble 2.5% of the total salaries for the Bucs starters.