Bucs Won Big on Trade for Jason Pierre-Paul

Tampa Bay's trade for a veteran pass rusher has paid huge dividends in many ways.

When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers traded a third-round pick in the 2018 NFL draft to the New York Giants for veteran pass rusher Jason Pierre-Paul, some wondered if it was a smart move.

In the summer of 2015, Pierre-Paul suffered a serious hand injury in a fireworks accident that could have ended his playing career. As it was, it limited him to just eight games and one sack that season. He missed four more games the following season, but did manage 15.5 sacks over his final two years in New York.

Still, the Bucs dealt the Giants the fifth selection in the third round that year, for a player who still has serious long-term questions and was already approaching 30 years old. Tampa Bay was also coming off a 5-11 season in 2017, their sixth losing season in the last seven campaigns. They weren't exactly a contender looking for that one veteran to put them over the top, and adding another young player with a high third-round pick would have made far more sense for where Tampa Bay was on the NFL food chain.

Still, the trade happened. 

And it's been nothing but a huge victory for general manager Jason Licht and the entire Bucs organization.

Pierre-Paul made an immediate impact, both on the field and in the locker room.

In his first season in Tampa Bay, Pierre-Paul racked up 12.5 sacks, tying the second-highest single-season total of his career (2014), and becoming the first Bucs player to post double-digit sacks in more than a decade (Simeon Rice). 

The following offseason, however, Pierre-Paul once again found himself facing a career-threatening injury. A car accident had left him with a fractured neck, and many wondered whether or not he would ever see the field again. He missed the first six games of the 2019 season, and his contract was restructured to make him a free agent at the end of the season, with production incentives in reward him if he was able to return and make an impact.

Make an impact he did, tallying 8.5 sacks over his 10 games. 

Pierre-Paul was reminded in October that not many people can suffer a fractured neck and still return to the field, much less as a key contributor and big-play artist.

"Not a lot of people come back from blowing off their hand, too," he responded.

True enough.

In all, Pierre-Paul has posted 21 sacks in his 26 games with the Bucs. But perhaps more importantly, it's what he's brought to the Tampa Bay locker room as a vocal leader and someone with plenty of experience in a championship culture. 

It was both Pierre-Paul's impressive performance on the field and his value as a respected leader than led the Bucs to bring him back on a new two-year deal this offseason, and with a respectable raise. 

And while the Giants wait for a big payoff from defensive lineman B.J. Hill, the player they took with that third-round pick in 2018, the Bucs are more than content with the value they received in that transaction.