Buccaneers DE Greg White recently finished his first complete season in the NFL and he's ready to be PAID for it reports the Tampa Tribune. Greg White finished his Rookie Season at the age of 28 with 8.5 sacks, 7 forced fumbles, and 26 tackles. He clearly made an impression on the competition and is hoping to have left an impression on his General Manager Bruce Allen. White is an exclusive-rights free agent, meaning Tampa Bay is the only team that can negotiate with him, thus ending any leverage he could ever dream of having. With a lack of any serious leverage, the Bucs have already offered Greg a contract worth a little more than the 300k he earned last season.

I think anyone can see where Greg White is coming from.. He was drafted in '02 by the Texans (and then cut), from '06 - '07 he played for the Arena League Orlando Predators (he had 15 sacks in '07). Head Coach Jon Gruden had to talk the guy into trying out for the Bucs and giving up his security in the Arena Leagues. White feels like he helped Gruden out and by paying his dues in the Arena League, feels as if he's not the typical Rookie and should be paid for his recent production.

There's two ways the Bucs can go about this and they've already hinted to which hand they'd like to play by marginally raising White's pay for this season. How about they give White the same marginal base salary, but then give him compensation for say, each sack he registers. Something like a .5 mil per sack. It would be interesting to see what White or any Defensive Lineman for that matter, would do when each sack comes with that type of incentive. It's definitely unorthodox and I'm not even sure if escalators like that would immediately go against the cap for this off-season, but anything to keep the big fella happy and motivated can't hurt. Regardless, Greg can't expect to get paid like a Veteran after one season, it doesnt work like that, even if he did have one heck of a season.