Trades to Make: Tampa Bay Buccaneers Wide Receiver Chris Godwin

With the NFL regular season coming up fast, teams are finalizing their rosters. However, there's still time for an aggressive team to shake up the league with a savvy trade. Here are the top remaining trade candidates who could be the difference between contention and disappointment for the right franchise.

Wide Receiver Chris Godwin

Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin may not be the flashiest pass catcher in the world, but any team looking for a reliable and chain-moving possession receiver should take a long look at the 2020 Super Bowl champion. Since 2019, Godwin has quietly averaged an impressive 73.9 receiving yards per game while operating as a complement to future Hall of Famer Mike Evans.

Unfortunately for the Bucs, that once dominant wide receiver duo appears to have plateaued of late, and the result has been an offense stuck in the mud. After three consecutive finishes inside the top three for points scored from 2019 to 2021, the Bucs finished 25th in 2022 and 23rd in 2023.

If the Bucs know what's good for them, they'll recognize that they need to shake things up on offense. They recently recommitted to Evans with a two-year, $41 million contract, so he isn't going anywhere. Moving on from Godwin would be an important step in a necessary (but painful) rebuild.

Who should be interested?

Godwin is in the final season of a three-year, $60 million extension and is set to earn $18.5 million in salary for the 2024 season. He appears willing to play out the final year of the deal, but he'll require either a franchise tag or an extension if he's going to be retained beyond this coming season. Therefore, he makes sense as a one-year rental for a team looking to squeeze everything they can out of the 2024 season.

Godwin doesn't have a WR1 skillset, but he has proved he can balance out an offense with a more traditional outside presence already in place. He would make sense on the Pittsburgh Steelers as a partner for George Pickens or on a generally receiver-needy team like the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Los Angeles Chargers.