Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Most Significant Bucs Trades
If the Bucs traded the #1 pick in this year's draft, it would surely be one of the most dramatic swaps in team history, but where would it rank among the trades that have had the most impact on the team?
General Manager Rich McKay somehow managed to swing a trade with Cleveland, sending TE Harold Bishop to the Browns for a second-round pick. Yes, the Bucs drafted Bishop in the third round, saw him have a blank of a debut campaign and then got a second-round pick for him the following year.
At the time, the team was rumored to be interested in Purdue's Mike Alstott as a potential first-rounder, and that proved half-right. The Bucs' didn't want to use a first-round pick on a fullback, but their ace in the hole was that Bishop-generated selection high in the second round. At pick #35, Tampa Bay did indeed select Alstott, and he went on to have one of the best careers in franchise history.
Buccaneers trade a 2013 first-round pick and a 2013 fourth-round pick (that could become a third-round pick) to the New York Jets for CB Darrelle Revis.
One of the most persistent debates of the 2013 offseason was whether the Jets really would trade Revis. The Buccaneers, believing they had showed promise in 2012 and hoping to break a playoff drought in 2013, made the bold move, sending that first-round pick to the Jets and signing Revis to a lucrative new deal.
Buccaneers trade WR Keyshawn Johnson to the Dallas Cowboys for WR Joey Galloway. From 2005-07, Galloway became the first Buccaneer to record three consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons, putting up 22 touchdowns in that span and averaging 16.6 yards per grab. On the Bucs' all-time receiving yardage list, Galloway ranks just ahead of Johnson, at #4, with 84 more yards.
Getting new scenery were two receivers who had been high-profile names in the NFL since the 1990s and, coincidentally, two players who had once been traded by their original teams for a pair of first-round picks. That's how the Bucs got Keyshawn Johnson in 2000, producing a marriage that was sometimes uneasy but did include matching championship rings in 2002.
Buccaneers trade 1977 seventh-round pick to the New York Jets for LB Richard Wood.
The best draft-pick-for-player trade the Buccaneers made during their wheeling-and-dealing 1976-78 days, the best was one made on the eve of the '76 season. On the first day of September, the Buccaneers sent a seventh-round pick in the '77 draft to the Jets to get linebacker Richard Wood, an All-American on McKay's USC teams. Wood was drafted by the Jets in the third round but had an unremarkable rookie season in New York.
Buccaneers trade QB Steve Young to San Francisco for cash, a 1987 second-round pick and a 1987 fourth-round pick.
The Bucs didn't do badly in the deal, as the second-round pick netted them a very good linebacker in Winston Moss and the fourth-rounder brought back productive receiver Bruce Hill. What makes this one of the team's most significant swaps, however, is that it marks the only time the franchise has ever traded away a future Hall-of-Famer.
Buccaneers trade two 2000 first-round picks to the New York Jets for WR Keyshawn Johnson.
The Jets already had two first-round picks in hand and apparently chose the rebuilding route by agreeing to send their most productive player to the Buccaneers for two more. New York became the first NFL team ever to make four picks in the first round of a draft. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, felt like it had found the final piece of the puzzle.
Buccaneers trade a 1983 first-round pick to Chicago for a 1982 second-round pick used to select DE Booker Reese.
Tampa Bay traded its 1984 first-round pick to get a quarterback a few months later, sending it to Cincinnati for Jack Thompson.
Buccaneers trade a 1978 first-round pick (#1 overall) to Houston for 1978 first-round pick (#17), 1978 second-round pick, 1979 third-round pick, 1979 fifth-round pick and TE Jimmie Giles.
The Bucs wanted Grambling quarterback Doug Williams and obviously were correct in believing they could move down that far and still get him. Williams may be the closest thing the Buccaneers have ever found to a franchise quarterback, and though his Buccaneer career ended in dispute with previous ownership he did lead the team to its first three playoff appearances.
Coming into the day with the seventh-pick in the round, Tampa Bay agreed to trade down five spots with the Eagles, who had their eyes on Combine workout warrior Mike Mamula. The Buccaneers favored another defensive lineman, Warren Sapp, and thought they could still get him at #12. They were right, and that allowed them to turn pick #72 into picks #43 and #63.
As the first round neared a close, another player of whom the Bucs were enamored was still available. So, armed with three second-rounders, Tampa Bay sent their own (#41) plus the second of the two they got from Philly (#63) to Dallas for #28. There they selected linebacker Derrick Brooks.
Buccaneers trade 2002 first-round pick, 2002 second-round pick, 2003 first-round pick and 2004 second-round pick to Oakland for the rights to Head Coach Jon Gruden.
The Buccaneers won their first Super Bowl in Gruden's first year at the helm, and that essentially made whatever price the Bucs had paid worth it. It was an incredibly aggressive move by team ownership, and it worked. Simple as that.
