Gerald McCoy apparently has his eye on one team above others in free agency.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday told McCoy they were planning to release him. The six-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman is telling teams he will visit the Cleveland Browns first, according to NFL Media’s Mike Garafolo.
This outcome is not too surprising considering the Browns were reported to have interest in trading for him.
Cleveland is switching to a 4-3 defense, which will necessitate more defensive linemen. They’re already pretty stacked with Olivier Vernon, Sheldon Richardson, former No. 1 pick Myles Garrett, as well as interior man Larry Ogunjobi. McCoy would give them even more depth and versatility.
Garafolo says the Carolina Panthers and Cincinnati Bengals also have interest in McCoy. McCoy had 28 tackles and six sacks in 14 games last season.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are releasing Gerald McCoy but reportedly have interest in a potential replacement.
The Bucs informed McCoy on Monday of their plans to release him, The Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud reports. They reportedly are interested in free agent Ndamukong Suh as a potential replacement.
Tampa Bay apparently worked with McCoy on the matter and wants him to find a suitable home. They gave his agent permission to talk with other teams.
The two sides seemed destined to part ways. McCoy was set to make $13 million this season, which is an amount Tampa Bay did not want to pay. The team was looking to trade him but apparently did not find a partner because other teams did not want to pay that amount and surrender an asset to get him on top of that. If he is going to take a pay cut, it would be for a championship contender. There is an up-and-coming AFC team was said to have interest in the six-time Pro Bowler.
McCoy, 31, had not been participating in off-season activities for Tampa Bay. The defensive lineman had 28 tackles and six sacks in 14 games last season.
The Cleveland Browns are building a contender for 2019 and may not be done making big moves.
The Canton Repository’s Steve Doerschuk reported on Monday that Browns GM John Dorsey has interest in trading for Gerald McCoy.
McCoy is owed $13 million for the upcoming season and could be moved by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in order to clear some salary cap space. He has reportedly been on the trade block, which likely explains why he hasn’t attended the team’s voluntary workouts.
The question is whether the Browns would trade for him. They added Olivier Vernon and Sheldon Richardson to their defensive line and already have former No. 1 pick Myles Garrett, as well as interior man Larry Ogunjobi. Is McCoy a necessity or luxury when they already have a stacked group? Switching to a 4-3 defense, Dorsey may believe adding McCoy to the mix would be helpful in giving them excellent depth.
If the Browns do look to trade for McCoy, running back Duke Johnson has been mentioned as a possible trade chip.
Gerald McCoy is not happy over the lack of Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the NFL Top 100 countdown.
NFL Network has been doing its annual top 100 player rankings, unveiling 10 new players per week in a countdown order. On Monday, they unveiled players Nos. 30-21. So far, not one Bucs player has been on the list, and that’s not sitting well with McCoy, who called it “laughable.”
Both McCoy and Mike Evans remain the Bucs’ best hope of landing a player on the list. It’s hard to imagine neither player making the list, but it’s also hard to imagine both being in the top 30. Maybe they will be. But McCoy certainly isn’t the first player to complain about the list.
Gerald McCoy says his daughter was a victim of racism while at school recently, and the veteran defensive tackle is furious over the way the school’s administrators handled the incident.
In a series of videos he shared on Instagram, McCoy explained that some young boys were playing “Truth or Dare” when one of the boys was dared to go up to his 12-year-old daughter and call her the N-word. McCoy says the boy was “bold enough to do it,” and he ended up being suspended from school for one day. However, the longtime Tampa Bay Buccaneers says school officials did not call the McCoy family to inform them about the incident.
“You would think that they would inform us, but that is not what happened,” McCoy explained. “We were informed by my daughter. It wasn’t until my wife had to email the head of the school and ask what happened and why we hadn’t been informed. The head of school said, ‘Well I was going to investigate, then let you know.’
“That lets me known racism is not being taken seriously enough. There’s no way, shape or form where that was handled properly.”
McCoy was further angered by the fact that one of his 3-year-old twins was sent home from the same school for a full week because the child had “potty training issues.” He said a school administrator told him comparing the suspension for the boys who used racist language to his 3-year-old being sent home for a week is “apples and oranges,” but McCoy does not see it that way.
“I’m not saying the administrator is racist, but what I’m telling you is things are not fair. … People are brushing racism under the rug like it doesn’t still exist,” he said.
If you remember, McCoy was one of the players who weighed in on the national anthem protest controversy across the NFL last year. It’s a shame his daughter would have to be subject to treatment like that anywhere in the world, let alone at her school.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a letter to all 32 teams on Tuesday informing them that the league would prefer it if players stood during the national anthem, but creating a rule banning anthem protests is not likely to happen.
And if it did, Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive lineman Gerald McCoy believes the reaction would not be pretty.
“I think it’s gonna be a negative reaction,” McCoy said on Adam Schefter’s podcast Wednesday. “I don’t think guys are gonna like it. I think it’s gonna be an uproar if that is to happen because you’re basically taking away a constitutional right to freedom of speech. If guys wanna have a — I guess you would call it a peaceful protest — I don’t think it’s right to take that away from guys.”
McCoy’s opinion is likely shared by most across the NFL. In his letter, Goodell urged teams to move past the national anthem controversy and wrote “we believe that everyone should stand for the National Anthem.” Donald Trump took that to mean the NFL was ordering players to stand.
Shortly after Trump sent that tweet, the NFL released a statement clarifying that it has made no such demand.
“Commentary this morning about the Commissioner’s position on the Anthem is not accurate,” the league said. “As we said yesterday, there will be a discussion of these issues at the owners meeting next week. The NFL is doing the hard work of trying to move from protest to progress, working to bring people together. Commissioner Goodell spent yesterday with Miami Dolphins players, law enforcement and community leaders witnessing first-hand the outstanding work our players and clubs are doing to strengthen their communities. Players from around the league will be in New York next week to meet with owners to continue our work together.”
McCoy added that he supports any of his teammates who chose to kneel.
“I had two teammates who did it in Mike Evans and DeSean Jackson, that’s their right to do that,” he said. “And if they’re gonna do it, they’re gonna have support of the whole team.
“But if you take that away from them, there’s gonna be an uproar — it’s just gonna happen — because now it’s just like you have a voice at one point, but then you don’t at this point. And, that’s our right … it’s a constitutional right that we have, and if you take that away, I don’t think people are gonna take too kindly to it.”
We know one NFL owner who would be in favor of the league passing a rule about anthem protests, but Goodell knows that would create a public relations nightmare. The chances of a rule being implemented seem slim.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive lineman and Oklahoma alum Gerald McCoy got the last laugh in more ways than one when it came to his former coach Greg Schiano and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
It all started with Schiano, who once coached McCoy in Tampa Bay and is now the defensive coordinator for Ohio State. Earlier in the offseason, he said Ohio State’s defensive line was even better than the ones he’d worked with in the NFL.
McCoy took some offense to that — and upon seeing the vaunted Buckeye front collect just two sacks against his alma mater Oklahoma on Saturday night in a statement victory, he couldn’t help but take a major shot at Schiano.
One of McCoy’s former Buccaneer teammates, defensive tackle Akeem Spence, even got in on the action.
Given the problems McCoy and the Buccaneers had with Schiano toward the end of his NFL tenure, it’s no surprise there’s little warmth there. The fact that his Sooners did it only makes things sweeter for the Bucs lineman.
H/T TheSpun
Don’t try to tell Tampa Bay defensive lineman Gerald McCoy that Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott is struggling.
In McCoy’s mind, Prescott’s shaky play recently is an aberration, and the Cowboys, who will host Tampa Bay on Sunday night, are as good as ever.
“He’s having a great rookie year, man,” McCoy said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “One of the top quarterbacks in the league this year and is very patient. Doesn’t let the rush affect him and he’s not really flustered that much. People are making such a big deal over two games or one game, whatever. They said, ‘Oh, the past [three] games the Cowboys are struggling.’ I think people just need something to write about. They lost one game in that span. One. What are they, 11-2? Golly, man.
“You lose one game and now you’re not the same team anymore? So what? I hope people are not basing predictions on what’s going to happen off them having struggles. They’re still the same team, they’re still the dominant team they’ve been.”
Thus far, the Cowboys seem to agree with McCoy. Tampa Bay is clearly intent on ensuring that they take the threat Prescott poses seriously instead of banking on another underwhelming performance.
The father of Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive lineman Gerald McCoy was injured in a confrontation with an armed burglar at his son’s home on Thursday, according to a report.
The Tampa Bay Times reports that Gerald McCoy Sr. encountered a burglar in his son’s home on Thursday. Apparently there was a struggle between the two men, and the 17-year-old burglar pulled out a weapon that appeared to be a gun. McCoy Sr. suffered a fractured wrist during the struggle.
The burglar escaped the home, leaving behind a stolen Xbox One system, and was later located by a police dog hiding in a storage closet at a neighbor’s home.
The Tampa Bay Times says the burglar was arrested and charged with armed burglary, grand theft, aggravated assault and aggravated battery. The teenager is wanted for multiple crimes in two other counties, including grand theft and grand theft auto. The guns he was carrying were found to be pellet guns.
Gerald McCoy Jr. was not at his home at the time of the attempted theft. Instead, he was at the team hotel where the Bucs stay before games as his squad prepared to face the Atlanta Falcons.
This is the second time in weeks that an NFL player’s home was burglarized while the player was away for a primetime game.
No team in the NFL has fallen apart quite like the Falcons this season, and at least one opponent believes Dan Quinn’s team has packed it in.
Jameis Winston led a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter against Atlanta last Sunday that was kept alive by an insane 20-yard scramble on 3rd-and-19. According to Buccaneers defensive lineman Gerald McCoy, that play was made possible by Atlanta’s lack of effort.
“Go back and look at the play and look at Jameis’ speed, and how he was playing, as opposed to look at the Atlanta Falcons and the speed they were playing at,” McCoy told the Buccaneers Radio Network Wednesday, as transcribed by JoeBucsFan.com. “That had thought he was down, guys walking around, jogging to him. Even when he started running again, guys were just jogging, ‘Oh, we’ll get him down.’ And Jameis was running for his life. You could just see the difference in how he was playing opposed to how the other team was playing. I mean, you just, we want it, man.”
Here’s a video of Winston’s scramble:
You can certainly see what McCoy was referring to. Falcons defensive end Adrian Clayborn (No. 99) and linebacker Vic Beasley (No. 44) appeared to quit on the play. Linebacker Justin Durant (No. 52) could have easily finished the play by wrapping up, but he instead chose to throw a shoulder into Winston.
Winston bounced off the pile and scampered another nine yards for the first down. The Bucs were trailing by three at the time, so they would have settled for a field goal if Atlanta was able to finish the play. Instead, they ended up scoring a game-winning touchdown on a 6-yard pass from Winston to Mike Evans.
The report we shared with you about Matt Ryan and Atlanta’s offense is a major concern, but the team obviously has more issues than that. The Falcons are still just a game back in the Wild Card race, but there’s no reason to feel good about their chances.
H/T Pro Football Talk
