Kansas City Chiefs RB LeSean McCoy on being cut by the Buffalo Bills.
The Bills moved on from LeSean McCoy, and now he’s one win away from his first Super Bowl ring. Well, his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, are.
McCoy was a surprise cut by Buffalo just before the 2019 season and signed with the AFC champs soon after. However, McCoy has been in and out of the lineup and during the playoffs, its been the same thing for him.
McCoy, 31, was inactive in the Chiefs’ win over the Titans in the AFC title game. He did suit up in the divisional round, but didn’t play.
In his final season with the Bills, he had his least production with the team, too. But despite those trends, McCoy recently revealed to the Buffalo News that the Bills cutting him was not because of his performance. Rather, it was finances.
“The Buffalo thing was, ah… a money thing,” McCoy said. “We had (training) camp. I was better than guys they had in camp, you know what I mean? So that wasn’t it. But it was a money thing. That was cool. I understand. It’s a business,” McCoy said.
Despite understanding, McCoy explained he still wasn’t completely happy how things went down.
“I just wish they would have been more honest, because I was trying to get out of there,” McCoy said. “So it was weird. So many things entered my mind.”
The running back explained he was getting phone calls from teams and others around the NFL tying to trade for him starting around the 2018 trade deadline. There were plenty of rumors afloat around that time as well. As the history books show, the Bills eventually never got a thing for him and eventually just cut him. The Bills did save about $6 million in cap space in doing so.
McCoy insisted as an inactive player he’s just happy to be part of a Super Bowl team, despite also saying he believes he was better than what the Bills had when he departed. McCoy never took any shots at Singletary, but certainty he seems unhappy with the Bills to a degree, calling the end of his time with the team “up and down” and mentioning he requested a trade if the team is “rebuilding.”
To McCoy’s point and feelings, the Bills did staunchly back him, making his release seem like a complete 180 degree flip. In July, Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane praised him. A few weeks later, the team released him.
“I’m not concerned. I think LeSean still can play. If not, we would have made the decision to move on,” Beane said in July. “I definitely think he’s got enough left in the tank to help us in 2019.”
But looking at the Bills’ side, the team likely wanted to make sure everything was going to be good to go without McCoy, from Singletary, to Frank Gore to even quarterback Josh Allen leading the way. In addition, a guy that’s expressed he wants to leave if things aren’t going his way? That’s not team captain material, which McCoy was.
Regardless, McCoy did give serviceable production to Buffalo at one point and deserves praise for that.
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