Draft Trades That Ruined The Past Decade Feb 6 2015, 1:12am 
Over the past few weeks, we have been given a fair share of Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota stories. Rather than entangle myself with the stories, I have been looking at the comments for a story to write. I’ve noticed a lot of people talking about past drafts and how bad we have been at drafting players for a while. With a little push from Hockie Duckie, I decided to look into it. And well, we all know it wasn’t pretty. Hockie Duckie mentioned to me in a comment about the year 2000, Y2K, the new century. I decided, why not start there. I went through all of the draft data for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, made lovely graphs, and figured out that I did it all wrong. I actually missed about 7 players and had other random players that impacted the data. So instead of talking about that article for now, but coming soon!, I wanted to talk about another idea Hockie Duckie mentioned. Draft Trades Since the year 2000, we have been a part of a lot of trades with draft picks. We traded for big names like Keyshawn Johnson, Darrelle Revis, and Kellen Winslow. We traded for Jon Gruden, who helped us to our only Super Bowl win. We have traded multiple draft picks to move up and select players who might help us. But in the end, was it worth it? Keyshawn Johnson When I look at Keyshawn Johnson’s trade, I see us getting a great, but loud, wide receiver. By the numbers, we got a wide receiver that put up 72 catches, about 950 yards, and 4 TD’s a season. It was production we had not seen before in Tampa Bay. Also, I noticed we paid a heavy price. We decided to trade our two first round draft picks, the #13th and the #27th pick. Respectfully, they were used on John Abraham, known for his days in Atlanta, and Anthony Becht, the same one who played for the Buccaneers later in his career. But the Jets missed out on multiple possible Hall of Famers. A few include Shaun Alexander, Sebastian Janikowski, Julian Peterson, Kieth Bullock, Chad Clifton, and of course, Tom Brady. Since we had the duo of the A-Train, Mike Alstott, Warrick Dunn, and Martin Gramatica, we wouldn’t have needed them. But Kieth Bullock or Julian Peterson would have made a great middle linebacker and Chad Clifton could’ve easily replaced one of our starting tackles. Tampa Bay Buccaneers New York Jets Possible Draftees2000 Keyshawn Johnson John Abraham Julian Peterson Chad Clifton Anthony Becht Kieth Bullock Super Bowl One of the worst and best trades was for John Gruden. Hell, he took us and won the Buccaneers a Super Bowl. But sadly, we mortgaged the future. We gave up our 2002 21st and 53rd picks, our 2003 32nd pick, and our 2004 45th pick. They turned into Philip Buchanon, Langston Walker, Tyler Brayton, and Jake Grove. All are decent players but like the Jets, they missed again. In 2002, they missed Ed Reed, Lito Sheppard, Clinton Portis, and Brian Westbrook. In 2003 and 2004, they missed Charles Tillman, Jon Stinchcomb, Rashean Mathis, Anquan Boldin, Osi Umenyiora, Lance Briggs, Jason Witten, Robert Mathis, Jared Allen, Nathan Vasher, Nick Hardwick, and Darnell Dockett. If they drafted any of those players and their team would’ve been back in the playoffs. And for us, well, we missed on them too. So we literally mortgaged the future for a Super Bowl. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Oakland Raiders Possible Draftees 2002 John Gruden Philip Buchanon Ed Reed Lito Sheppard Langston Walker Jon Stinchcomb Tyler Brayton Jared Allen Robert Mathis Jake Grove Nick Hardwick Kellen Winslow II In 2009, we traded for Kellen Winslow Jr. from the Cleveland Browns. For the first and only time in this section, we did not give up a first round pick but rather a 2nd and a 5th. In the end, Winslow averaged 73 catches for about 785 yards and 4 TD’s a season. He was one of our best receivers in each of the 3 seasons he played too. It was a good trade from our side but we gave up the #50 pick in the 2009 draft and the 5th round pick in the 2010 draft. In the 2009 draft, the Cleveland Browns selected Mohamed Massaquoi. He turned out to be a bust and they missed out on LeSean McCoy, Sebastian Vollmer, and Sean Smith. In the 2010 draft, they used the pick to trade up in the 2nd round. I feel like we got the better of this deal but also missed out on some good players too. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cleveland Browns Possible Draftees 2009 Kellen Winslow II Mohamed Massaquoi LeSean McCoy Sebastian Vollmer Traded Up Sean Smith Darrelle Revis Last but not least, in terms of money, we traded for Darrelle Revis in 2013. We gave up our 1st round pick in 2013 and 4th round pick in 2014. Somehow, we gave Revis the richest contract for a defensive back and only kept him a season. However, his play in that season was very good. In 2013, the Jets used our 13th pick to pick Sheldon Richardson. Honestly, they hit well with this pick. I wish we could’ve gotten him or Star Lotulelei. In 2014, they picked Jalen Saunders. He didn’t do much of anything this season. They missed out on a few players like Ka’Deem Carry, Tre Boston, and Martavis Bryant. In the end, I think the Jets got the best of us. Tampa Bay Buccaneers New York Jets Possible Draftees 2013 Darelle Revis Sheldon Richardson Jalen Saunders Martavis Bryant Opinion We have had a lot more trades than that but those are the four trades that impacted our franchise for multiple years. Many of them are us trading up for players who don’t turn out very well, Josh Freeman, and some that do, Lavonte David and Doug Martin. In my personal opinion, the John Gruden trade is the best and worst trade. He got us to the Super Bowl but we gave up too many draft picks and he wasn’t as good of a guru as we thought he was. Darrelle Revis is a close second but with the possible players we missed out on with the Gruden trade, that one wins every time. So what is your opinion?link
