Go get another bucket of popcorn, this one will run and run...
After removing Josh Freeman from his position as their starting quarterback just under 2 weeks ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are demonstrating that implementing that decision was about the only clear action they had worked out. Since then, events have spun out of control.
Both sides, by all accounts, have been behaving badly. Freeman has been sulking, skipping meetings, refusing to talk to the Tampa-area media, but talking to the national media. He is behaving very much like a jilted lover, and has made it clear that he wants to be traded by the Bucs.
The challenge is that it is almost impossible to trade him. He is in the last year of his contract, and as a vested veteran, under the CBA he is entitled to take the entire base salary for the year as termination pay if he is cut by the Bucs. So, whether he stays or is cut, the Bucs are on the hook for $6+million in salary from now until the end of the season.
If the Bucs cut him now, they still owe him all of the 2013 salary. They will not get any draft compensation if they do that.
If the Bucs keep him until the end of the season when his contract expires, they will still owe the same salary money, but they will get a compensatory draft pick for him for 2014.
In order to trade him, the Bucs have to persuade another team to take on his contract. No team is going to take on a liability of $6m+ in salary for a player who becomes a free agent at the end of the season. There are also less than 4 weeks left until the trade deadline, and no obvious quarterback distress stories around the NFL.
So...in order to trade him, the Bucs will have to persuade him to rework his contract to create a contract that another team would be prepared to assume. Most likely that would involve Freeman agreeing to a new multi-year deal with a lot of signing bonus money (to equal or exceed the money he will earn under the current contract) with low base salaries in all years of the deal.
The challenge is finding a team needing quarterback help who is willing to take on that kind of arrangement. Freeman's recent pouting and lack of co-operation will not have helped, since it creates a perception of immaturity. Right now, other teams will be more inclined to see if the Bucs release Freeman, at which point he will become a free agent, and any team can sign him to a low-cost contract.
The issues between the Bucs and Freeman have the potential to expand to encompass the whole of the NFL. Leakage of news about Freeman's participation in the NFL drug testing program (which should not have even been revealed to the Bucs under CBA rules) further muddies the water, and makes it more likely that the NFLPA will get involved sooner or later. If that happens, then the commissioner himself might get pulled into the mess if the NFLPA files a grievance. If that happens, he will not be happy with the Bucs, nor will the other owners.
In short, this is a mess, and, with a second year head coach who is battling other issues with the team's poor record, one that the Bucs need to get out of quickly.
UPDATE - The Bucaneers finally concluded that the Josh Freeman saga was too much for them to handle at this time, and released Freeman, who has now signed with the Minnesota Vikings. So, they ended up with the worst possible outcome - the release, without any draft pick compensation, of their #1 quarterback to whom they will still (most probably) owe close to $6m in termination pay, with no offset from his salary with his new team. The events also call into question the whole coaching and front office dynamic within the team. Since Jon Gruden (who, like Barry Switzer at the Cowboys, basically inherited another coach's team, the Bucs appear to be heading down a road that is familiar for under-achieving franchises - a revolving door of coaches who last (at most) three seasons. This is not a recipe for sustained excellence in the NFL.