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Gerald McCoy’s Price Tag Was Too Much For Browns [Report]

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Getty Gerald McCoy signed with the Carolina Panthers.

More money, more problems, right?

The Cleveland Browns were one of the top contenders to sign free agent defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, but according to a new report, money was the issue between the two sides, leading the three-time All-Pro to sign with the Carolina Panthers on Monday.

McCoy’s deal with the Panthers is reportedly for 1-year deal and worth roughly $8 million, with a chance to make $10 million or so based on playing time and sack incentives, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport.

What the Panthers also offered is a chance at revenge for McCoy, who will stay in the division and face his former team twice next season. That’s something money can’t buy.
He’ll likely have plenty of motivation after new Bucs head coach Bruce Arians said the three-time All-Pro “didn’t fit,” among other things.

Another reason it’s personal now for McCoy is that after spending his entire career with Tampa Bay, the team gave his No. 93 jersey to free agent Ndamukong Suh just a day after his release.

McCoy has 54.5 sacks and 216 tackles in his career. His best year was in 2009, when he recorded 9.5 sacks, 50 tackles and 15 tackles for loss. McCoy is still one of the top players at the position, but he’s 31 and he hasn’t been an All-Pro talent since 2014. His last Pro Bowl was in 2017, but he’s more than capable of paying off his hefty price tag.

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The Browns had been courting McCoy before his release from Tampa Bay.However, the team’s interest grew when the Bucs decided to cut the three-time All-Pro,eliminating what was a whopping $13 million price tag. 

Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens said he wanted McCoy to be “all in” if he came to Cleveland to play alongside the likes of Myles Garrett, Olivier Vernon and Sheldon Richardson on the defensive line.

“He knows he is going to be playing. I know the more good football players you have, the better you are, the better rotation is, the better you can get after a quarterback in a two minute drive,” Kitchens said. “There is a staggering stat or something like 78 percent of two-minute drives, if you have a sack, give up a sack, anywhere along that way, your chances of scoring goes under 20 percent. He knows when we will want to put pressure on the quarterback. He knows that is what we are going to be about. Hopefully he wants to be a part of it.”

McCoy would have been a luxury for the Browns. Cleveland already has an All-Pro on the D-line in former first overall pick Garrett, and are expecting big things out of third-year DT Larry Ogunjobi. Richardson will occupy the other tackle spot next to Ogunjobi, and is coming off a season where he totaled 49 tackles, 4.5 sacks and 6 TFLs.

J.R. DeGroote covers the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Lakers for Heavy.com. He covered local and statewide sports as a reporter for West Hawaii Today and has decades of experience in digital media with previous stops at SB Nation and Bleacher Report. He has won multiple state, regional and national honors for sports reporting and photography. More about J.R. DeGroote

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