The Tampa Bay Buccaneers cut longtime defensive tackle Gerald McCoy today. Where does the team go next?
After spending nine seasons and making six pro bowls, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers mutually agreed to part ways with defensive tackle, Gerald McCoy.
McCoy was the third overall pick of the Bucs in the 2010 NFL Draft and was dominant for many years.
In his time in Tampa McCoy recorded 54.5 career sacks. He was seen as the face of the franchise and was the anchor to the Buccaneer defense for several of his nine seasons with the team.
As time passed on, McCoy’s play declined. His sack totals have dropped the last four years, going from eight and a half down to six.
Part of that was due to poor play from his fellow teammates, but McCoy didn’t bring the pressure like he used to.
Not to mention the defensive tackle was making a 13 million dollar base salary for a team with the least cap space in the NFL. All of these factors led to the ultimate choice to move on.
Despite losing one of the most popular team players, this move helps the team going forward.
Before cutting McCoy, the Bucs only had one million dollars in cap space. To put in perspective how little this is the team couldn’t even afford to sign most of their draft picks.
McCoy had no guaranteed money this year, and thus the team instantly saves 13 million in cap space. This will give them the ability to sign their picks, but also have some emergency cap for the regular season, in case of an injury.
Though it helps the team finically, there’s no doubt losing McCoy hurts the product the Bucs will put on the field. Even with declining play, McCoy still played 14 games, while playing 70% of the teams defensive snaps in 2018.
McCoy won’t be easy to replace, as he was their vocal leader on the defense, and represented Tampa Bay for the last nine years. It doesn’t help that this move comes after the injury to Jason Pierre-Paul, who may be out for at least four months with a neck injury he obtained in a car accident.
The Bucs defense was terrible last year, and losing their top two pass rushers in one year isn’t going to help. However, the team has been preparing for this move since last year.
In the 2018 offseason, they signed Beau Allen and then drafted Vita Vea to eventually replace McCoy.
All in all, this signals the changing of an era for the Tampa defense. Both McCoy and Kwon Alexander are gone leaving Lavonte David and Devin White as the faces of the defense.
There’s no doubt the defense will look different in 2019 and with Todd Bowles leading it, you have to feel excited about where they could go moving forward.
For now, we can remember all the good memories of McCoy in a Buccaneers uniform, and appreciate his hard work and effort on and off the field.
