Pro Football Focus will be providing analysis for every major NFL signing and trade during the 2015 free-agency period, accounting primarily for the quality of the player and his fit with his new team, and focusing less on the financial terms of the deal.
Here is a grade for the deal between Henry Melton and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Grade articles on every major deal
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: B
While he won't be the answer to Tampa Bay's woes in the run game, Melton can provide a legitimate situational pass-rusher alongside Gerald McCoy. Melton made his name in Chicago under Lovie Smith as the penetrating 3-technique that is essentially responsible for creating as much havoc as possible play after play. It's a position already filled in Tampa Bay by arguably the league's best 3-technique in McCoy. Melton's size (6-foot-3, 295 pounds) and run defense (never had a season graded positively against the run) mean that he won't be an every-down player, but he can still bring a lot to the table in a league where passing is so important.
With Dallas he was purely a sub-package player (433 snaps last season) and he has never really been a high-volume player for his career. The defensive tackle's highest single-season snap total is just 639 and that came back in 2011. His usage in Tampa Bay shouldn't be any different, likely only getting snaps in obvious passing situations and the rare spell of McCoy.
Melton has been superb in that role, though, and that didn't change even after a 2013 ACL injury. His past three healthy seasons saw him rank inside the top 10 among defensive tackles for pass-rushing productivity, with a high PRP of 8.2 last season, and rack up 21 sacks. Teamed up with McCoy on third downs, the Bucs will have one of the league's deadliest interior pass-rushing tandems.