What’s next for Gerald McCoy?

Chomps

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Mar 18, 2019
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The Buccaneers didn’t want to pay veteran defensive tackle Gerald McCoy $13 million in 2019. More importantly, no one else wanted to trade for McCoy’s contract.

And that’s often the impetus for a trade. Yes, the new team wants the player. But the new team also prefers to surrender a draft pick or a player for the contract, in lieu of potentially having to pay even more in an open competition if/when the player is released.

The fact that the Bucs couldn’t find a trade partner for McCoy means that no one wanted to give up anything of value for the privilege of getting McCoy at $13 million in compensation this season. Which suggests that McCoy, on the open market, will have a hard time getting to that number.

The Browns are the only team that had been linked to McCoy before he was released; if another team had been considering a trade for McCoy, that news surely would have emerged, if for no reason other than to create a real market for McCoy’s services — and ultimately to spark a deal.

That’s not to say there aren’t other interested teams, but if it were believed that McCoy would be a guy who commands significant dollars if available in free agency (i.e., more than the $13 million he was due to make in 2019), the Bucs should have been able to trade him, somewhere.

Spitballs regarding potentially interested teams already have emerged, likely pushed by the McCoy camp in order to spark a market for his services. Still, the Browns continue to be the only team that had been linked to McCoy. And without a second team to drive up the price, McCoy will have a hard time approaching the money he was due to make in 2019 from Tampa — especially with multiple other veteran defensive linemen still available to be signed.

If McCoy somehow matches or surpasses it, the message will be that the Bucs bungled what should have been an ideal situation to trade not just the player but the contract.
 
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