Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Biggest takeaways after the draft

Gerald McCoy appears to be staying

The window to move Gerald McCoy may be shut now. The draft was probably the best opportunity to trade him and his contract off to another team, and now after waiting until the seventh round to add a defensive tackle, losing McCoy would cripple their defensive front.

Even if McCoy may not be the player he once was and may not be worth his $13 million contract, he still graded out in the green with a score of 78.6 according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required). He also recorded six sacks, six tackles for loss, and 21 hits on the quarterback in 2018.

To put how badly it would hurt the Buccaneers to lose McCoy at this point, the numbers he recorded are more than Beau Allen, William Gholston, and Vita Vea all put together combined last year. If the Buccaneers moved on from McCoy at this point, they would be saddled with a front three of Gholston, Vea, and Allen with Rakeem Nunez-Roches and seventh round pick Terry Beckner rotating in.

In Bowles’ new 3-4 scheme, Jason Pierre-Paul, Carl Nassib, Noah Spence, and Anthony Nelson will all be rotating off the edge. If the Buccaneers were to move one of them to the interior of the defensive front, then they would be lacking depth on the edge. They find themselves in a catch-22 and would be better off keeping McCoy on the roster at this point.