Over the last two days, the Buccaneer assistant coaches met with the media including defensive coordinator Todd Bowles.
Bowles was asked on a couple of occasions about Gerald McCoy and gave no indication as to if he would prefer McCoy be on the team.
When asked about McCoy and if he would be on the team or not come September Bowles responded “that is above my pay grade”, deferring to Bruce Arians and Jason Licht.
Bowles also said he has had no contact with McCoy since the end of January right after Bowles came on board as defensive coordinator.
It is not looking like McCoy will be with the team much longer. Everyone thought that McCoy would be traded during the draft, but it’s obvious the Bucs are having a real difficult time moving McCoy due to in part to his 13 million dollar salary.
Would you trade anything for McCoy knowing that in a few weeks you could probably sign him as a free agent and negotiate a new contract?
Most teams are just playing the waiting game.
McCoy has been linked to the Cleveland Browns by various sources. The Bucs would send McCoy to the Browns, and in return the Bucs would get running back Duke Johnson. This would help the Bucs get out of the salary cap hell they are in as Johnson would only count a little over four million this year before going to five million for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
That would be a net gain of just under nine million dollars for the Bucs as it relates to the salary cap.
The Browns are $33 million under the cap so would be able to afford McCoy easily.
The Bucs are just $1.77 million under the cap and it will take a little over ten million dollars to sign the draft class of 2019.
The Bucs have already tried to create a little room by cutting six players including Hard Knocks favorite, linebacker Riley Bullough who was snatched up immediately by the Tennessee Titans.
I would expect something to happen regarding Gerald McCoy before May 10. That is when the rookies and free agents will be in Tampa for a two day rookie camp, and some of the rookies may not report to that camp if they are not under contract.
We’ve heard Bruce Arians, Jason Licht, and now Todd Bowles, talk about the Gerald McCoy situation and no one wants to go on the record and just come and say what the majority of fans already know, that McCoy is as good as gone.
McCoy will not take a cut in salary to say with the Bucs, so the obvious solution to freeing up some cap money is cut McCoy.
Everyone just keeps dancing around the issue when we know what the end result is going to be.
When the Bucs lose McCoy, they will have to ride out the season with the defensive linemen that are on the roster as they will have no money to bring in a marquee defensive linemen.
The Bucs will have Vita Vea, Beau Allen, Stevie Tu”ikolovatu, Terry Beckner Jr., Jeremiah Ledbetter, and Rakeem Nunez-Roaches to rotate in as defensive tackles.
