salary cap hell!

the strategy was sound and worked. We got very close and the price of losing an all world / all time qb isn't one that can be paid by simply being mad and complaining about it after the fact.

It also kept us at average instead of trash and has NEVER prevented us from signing anyone and everyone we wanted.

It's hard to win in the NFL. It's almost impossible to seamlessly replace Drew Brees or everyone would do it.
Hardly anyone was complaining about going all in while Drew was playing. I don't think anyone was expecting a seamless transition either. It's been time to be trash for a year so we can get younger and cheaper. The Bucs attempted to do that this past year with $70 million in dead money and they ended up winning the division and a playoff game anyway. They are already past the bulk of their Brady era cap problems. Average is all we're ever going to be with this kick the can strategy. It didn't work when we had Drew and Payton and it's certainly not worth continuing now that they are both gone.