Just like I said earlier, this seems like a simple swap of players, just with 3 different teams involved.  Pittsburgh nets a pick, the Bucs replace Buenning with Mahan, and the Bears acquire Buenning. 

The funny thing about this trade is the fact that Mahan and Buenning once looked like a promising core of lineman for the Bucs in 2005, starting all 16 games together.  Before last season though, Mahan was not retained and signed as a free agent with the Steelers, and Buenning continued his string of always being hurt.  I’d have to think that injury history had something to do with this trade.  With only undrafted Jonathan Lee and Anthony Davis serving as the backups right now, one injury would have thrust Buenning into the starting lineup. Given his dicey knees and injury history, maybe we weren’t willing to count on that.  Mahan isn’t a mauling beast like Buenning, but with the rest of our line more on the lines of mauling beasts, sans Jeff Faine, maybe the brass thought bringing in another Faine like player in Mahan was the right way to go.   

 For a league that is very devoid of trades, Bruce Allen seems to make plenty of them.  Last year we acquired Ryan Sims and Michael Bennett via trade.  Thomas Jones, Joey Galloway, Tim Rattay and Luke McCown have all been acquired via trade.  We have shipped off numerous players as well including Marques Douglas this season, Keenan McCardell, Keyshawn Johnson, Roman Oben and Booger McFarland.