It’s rare to hear an NFL coach talk about the money side of player management. It might come up at a press conference before free agency opens in March, but in May?
That’s darn rare unless said player being discussed is holding out for a better deal.
New Bucs receivers coach Bryan McClendon seems like a candid guy. When asked this week, he did not reject the premise that Chris Godwin didn’t always like how he was used last season and that Godwin made it known.
McClendon actually implied that Godwin has an unwritten expectation when it comes to targets and production, and it’s the coaching staff’s job to make Godwin happy.
You know, stats equal big money at contract time.
“I understand the frustration and everything else,” Bryan McClendon said of Godwin. “But Chris is such a guy that, hey man, he’s one of those: ‘Hey, if the team needs me to do this, then we can do this.’ And I get it, too, because there’s a business component of kinda what he sees that he’ll need to do also. So just being able to marry that stuff up, you know, is always a constant struggle for every coach right now in the NFL.”
The “business component” McClendon referenced for Godwin sounds like it’s as simple as, ‘Hey, just make sure I get my 1,000 yards and at least eight targets every game and I’ll do whatever it takes to win.’
Again, coaches, especially assistant coaches, hardly ever reveal this type of behind-the-curtain thinking that goes into game-planning.
Godwin, who is now in a contract year, has a streak of three consecutive seasons with 1,000 or more yards, and he’s averaged 95 catches a year in those seasons. If he stays on that pace, Joe suspects Godwin will avoid frustration in this season and Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht will pay him market value to return in 2025.
