Boom! goes McCray.

The Buccaneers traded backup safety Kelcie McCray to the Kansas City Chiefs for their guard Rishaw Johnson. McCray played in 11 games for the Buccaneers last year and recorded 7 tackles, one for a loss, one defended pass, and one fumble recovery. He single handedly won the Buccaneers the game against the Detroit Lions in 2013 when he hit Calvin Johnson causing him to fumble the ball straight into the hands of Jonathan Banks for a game winning interception. Those are all pretty impressive numbers for a back up safety who only played a handful of plays.

In return for McCray, the Buccaneers acquire guard Rishaw Johnson who has only started one game for the Chiefs and played in three. He was on the practice squad for the Seahawks in 2012 so there is very little film on the guy. Johnson was in line to start for the Chiefs until their rookie lineman beat him out for the starting job in preseason. That does not bode well for his abilities.

I am not going to lie and say that this is a good trade. McCray was a playmaker and at the least a very very competent backup. He gave us very good depth at the safety position and could have been parlayed into even better trade bait if need be. I feel as though he was squandered to shore up a position that, while sorely needs shoring up, is in its current state due to the bad decisions by the head coach.

Lovie Smith is notorious for having horrible offensive line units and it appears as though he is going to keep up that trend with the Buccaneers. I was not a fan of him coming in and blowing up our offensive line as his first official act as the head coach. Getting rid of Penn, Zuttah, Larsen, and Joseph has caused nothing but trouble for our team since. Now it appears that the decision is starting to subtract good players from the roster even further and on the opposite side of the ball. I think fans are going to start having a hard time with these decisions if the starters become the casualties. It was a backup player this time, one that most Buccaneer fans did not even know the name of, but if we have to trade a known player to continue with this offensive line experiment, I do not think the fans will have much patience for that tactic.

Good luck to you McCray. I will be keeping an eye on you and your career. Welcome to the Bucs, Johnson.