“Jason, let’s take care of ‘Shep.'”

Joe wouldn’t blame Bucs receiver Sterling Shepard one bit if he was outraged how the season ended.

Sure, the Bucs missed the playoffs. That’s a reason to be outraged alone. But the way the season played out cost Shepard six figures of revenue.

Until it didn’t.

Shepard was inactive for the final four games. As a result, he missed out on bonus money. A good chunk of bonus money.

Despite the Bucs having their top four receivers healthy, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Emeka Egbuka and Jalen McMillan, you can see how Shepard may have felt he got robbed.

Apparently, per Greg Auman of FOX Sports, Team Glazer and Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht also saw how someone could put two-and-two together and come to the same conclusion.

So the Bucs, even though they didn’t have to, made sure they showed Shepard the money.

gregauman: Cool move by the Bucs — receiver Sterling Shepard was inactive the last four games as other WRs got healthy, and finished one catch and 29 yards short of $125,000 incentives as a result. Team paid out both, and an additional $250k for $500k as a separate bonus.

Again, the Bucs easily could have stuck to their guns and told Shepard to go read the fine print of his contract. They didn’t. (Joe would expect notorious tightwad Bengals owner Mike Brown to do something like that.)

Trust Joe, word spreads quickly to NFL players about gestures like this by the Bucs. It could someday be the difference between a player signing with the Bucs or playing elsewhere.