By – J.T. Olsen
Special to Sports Talk Florida
Monday morning it was reported that Cleveland Browns star edge rusher Myles Garrett had requested a trade. The Browns finished with the second worst record in the NFL last year despite Garrett’s efforts in route to winning Defensive Player of the Year. In his statement, Garrett emphasized the importance of competing for and winning a Super Bowl.
Not many teams have that as a realistic expectation in the immediate future, but one of the teams who does is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I have said over the course of the last year that the Bucs championship window opens in 2025. The biggest piece that they need to add is a pass rusher just like Garrett.
Of course, there will be many teams lining up to try and acquire a superstar like Garrett. After all, players of this caliber don’t become available very often. However, I truly believe that the Buccaneers are the perfect fit for Myles Garrett.
Here’s why.
Respecting Garrett’s Wishes
As I said before, Garrett has made this trade request because he wants to compete for a Super Bowl. With this alone, we can probably eliminate at least half the teams in the NFL. So I’m sorry Tennessee Titans fans and New Orleans Saints fans, you and teams in a similar position to you are already out of the running.
And while it’s true that Garrett can’t control where he is traded, he does hold some power. It might be unwise for a bad team to part with premium draft picks for a player who says he doesn’t want to play there. We have seen players such as Hassan Reddick hold out for an extended period of time.
Even if Garrett were to go to a bad team and try his very best, how different would the results be than what we saw in Cleveland? Then Garrett isn’t happy and the team has invested high draft capitol into a short term solution that likely won’t help them compete for a Super Bowl.
It really feels like the Browns have to honor Garrett’s request and trade him to a potential contender. That means a playoff team for this year or a team that was just on the outside and looking in and is trending in the right direction. The Bucs would fall into this category.
Does The Money Work?
We talk all the time that the salary cap in the NFL isn’t real. However, that isn’t entirely true. While the cap can be manipulated in a variety of ways, not every team will be able to take on the money that Garrett is owed.
What that entails is around $20 million for each of the next two seasons and then several void years after that. What makes a trade like this difficult is that in 2027 Garrett has a void year that would bring $37 millions in dead cap space. That will complicate things who have a lot of important free agents in that offseason.
However, it will favor teams who have a lot of young talent who are cheap and controllable. So if you have star players such as Calijah Kancey, Graham Barton, Jalen McMillan, Bucky Irving, etc who would still be on their rookie deals then it would go a long way to open up money to make this deal work. Not many teams have drafted as well as Jason Licht in recent years, so not many teams will have the young cheap talent that the Bucs will.
It also helps that the Buccaneers aren’t paying their starting quarterback a ton of money relative to the rest of the league. Baker Mayfield currently makes the 18th highest annual salary among NFL quarterbacks at $33.3 million per year. Compared to the $50-$60 million the top nine quarterbacks each make annually, this opens up some money that the Bucs can spend in other places over the next two years.
Bringing Out The Best In Each Other
When making a massive trade like this would be, everyone involved has to consider if this is the best move for them. Cleveland has to kickstart a rebuild, so maximizing return makes sense for them. Getting as many assets as possible is their objective.
For the Bucs, they are potentially two or three players away from possibly being the team to beat in the NFL. Specifically, edge rusher is a massive need for this Buccaneers team. While Bowles does a great job of generating pressure with the blitz, the Bucs edge rushers don’t win a lot of individual matchups and they desperately need someone who can do that.
We already know Garrett wants to play for a contender and the Bucs would offer that. Beyond winning, Tampa also offers a great supporting cast on a defensive line that features Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey who can help take pressure off Garrett and help him be more impactful individually.
In terms of what Garrett can do for the Bucs defense and what the Bucs defense can do to help Garrett be successful, there might not be a better fit from a football perspective in the NFL.
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