I'll kick this off by saying I'm fine with the Suh signing just like I'm fine McCoy getting cut.
The two things that do make me roll my eyes are (A) how Licht screwed up with McCoy to get to this point and (B) all the shitting on McCoy and praising of Suh.
Yes, Suh was and is the better player. Not a lot better, but a bit (they're also different players). Cutting McCoy and replacing with Suh on a cheaper contract is a probable win (other than fucking the McCoy situation).
But all the love for Suh is pure nostalgic bullshit - it's straight "the grass is greener on the other side". Suh is very, very flawed.
1) Suh's also a "loser".
Like McCoy, Suh has lost far more than he's won. In fact, he's had 4 "winning" season to McCoy's 2. And his first playoff win was with the Rams.
In fact "Suh's defense" were 22, 9, 14, 3, 25, 19, 28, 17 in DVOA (2010-2018).
2) Suh is a dirty player who takes too many penalties.
We all like a nasty attitude on defense. But what Suh has done goes way beyond the line with repeated incidents. And those penalties are costly. He's been penalized so often he's amassed fines of $400,000.
Again, we all like players with attitude on the DL. But Suh goes beyond to a degree that hurts his team. Do I like McCoy's attitude? No. But Suh goes too far the other way and HURTS the team.
3) Suh had far superior players around him
Suh has played with Cliff Avril, Ezekiel Ansah, Olivier Vernon, Cameron Wake, and of course Aaron Donald.
The quality of DL that Suh has played with is light years better than McCoy. You can literally pick any year of Suh's DL teammates and have better players than McCoy has ever had.
4) Suh had real NFL Defensive Coordinators
Suh has played under Jim Schwartz, Vance Joseph, and Wade Philips for all but 2/10 years.
McCoy has played under Morris, Schiano, Lovie Smith, and Mike Smith.
5) People complain about McCoy's money, well Suh has made more
This team has a bad history with players just seeking a place that will pay them a lot of cash. I'm not saying that's Suh, although it might be at this point in his career. Why else would he come to Tampa?
But either way, the criticisms of McCoy "not willingly taken a pay cut" (which is stupid) ignore that Suh has career earnings of $139 million to McCoy's $110 million. McCoy could've forced his way out of Tampa like Suh did to earn extra money, and he took less to stay here. Yes, he was still very well paid - but he took less.
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tl;dr
All the stuff about McCoy not being a leader, being too soft, and not winning almost perfectly applies to Suh. Except rather than being too soft Suh hurts his team by being a dirty player. And he's a worse "leader" than McCoy, having a mixed reputation in the locker room (and being on his 4th team). Suh's first playoff win was on a stacked Rams team where he was maybe the 5th best player on the D.
Suh is likely a slight upgrade to McCoy in run defense and health (and a slight downgrade is pass rushing). It's not a leadership gain and for all the "nastiness" Suh has brought the defenses he's played on have been very mixed even while having talent and good DCs.
And again, from a May 22 2019 perspective, I think cutting McCoy and signing Suh frees up necessary cap room and is a slight upgrade at DT.
