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The more the Bucs lose games, the more I see suggestions that hey should start trading their good players. Rumors that Vincent Jackson would be on the New England Patriots' radar seem to mostly stem from some speculation of Boston talk radio. Jackson wouldn't be the Patriots' kind of trade, anyway: older and with very large cap hits. They steer away from those players.
That won't stop the speculation, though. Will the Bucs turn an asset into a draft pick? In my opinion, that's exceedingly unlikely to happen, for a couple of reason.
First, the Bucs are set up to win now. Even if they keep losing games, they are not about to go into rebuilding mode. They have Pro Bowlers and All-Pro players in their prime all over the roster. Vincent Jackson, Mike Williams, Carl Nicks, Doug Martin, Lavonte David, Mark Barron, Dashon Goldson, Darrelle Revis, Gerald McCoy -- at every position except tight end and quarterback, this team is set for the near future. Trading players would take away from their chances to win now and in the future, unless of course, the deal is very, very good -- but very, very good deals don't come around all that often in the NFL.
Another factor is the fact that none of the team's quality players are on short contracts. Almost all of them are part of the team's future for at least the next two seasons. And those who aren't have such expensive contracts that their trade value is minimal. Add in the fact that Mark Dominik and Greg Schiano aren't exactly in a position to trade wins this season for draft picks next season, and you're probably not going to see any moves soon.
In effect, the best chance the Bucs had of trading a player was with Josh Freeman this offseason, and they never tried to do it. To now start trading Pro Bowl players while they could contribute greatly to the team over the next couple of years would be sheer folly.
The Buccaneers appear to be similar to last year's Kansas City Chiefs: a talented team with some leadership and quarterback problems. The Chiefs fixed those problems by adding Andy Reid and trading for Alex Smith (although that's a patchwork fix at best). Those Chiefs are now 5-0.
The Bucs are likely to end up with a new head coach and a new quarterback next season, unless they start winning games really quickly. That should be enough for them to be a contender next season with the talent on their roster, which means that trading players to start rebuilding makes no sense.