Sikkema’s Selections 1-5

1. DT Warren Sapp
2. DE Simeon Rice
3. DT Gerald McCoy
4. QB Doug Williams
5. DE Michael Bennett

Sikkema’s Reaction – Rounds 1-5
You know what wins championships in the game of football?

Pass rushers.

You know what my team has plenty of?

Pass rushers.

Bucs DE Simeon Rice and DT Warren Sapp – Photo by: Getty Images

It didn’t take long for the people around the drafting table to realize what my big board emphasized in terms of where to build a team, and that started with me passing on a player who I believe to be the greatest Buccaneer of all time – and my favorite player of all time – Derrick Brooks. But, as hard as that was to do, I got what I came for in the first round, and that was the team’s all-time leader in sacks from the defensive tackle position, Warren Sapp.

Sapp racked up 77 sacks and 307 tackles in his nine years in Tampa Bay and brought some nasty swagger to the Bucs defense. I knew I had to have him as my centerpiece. I follow up the Sapp selection by taking the No. 3 ranked pass rusher in the team’s history in defensive end Simeon Rice. Rice’s 69.5 sacks in just six seasons give me a nice 1-2 pass-rushing punch with Sapp. Thankfully, I didn’t have to choose between the two; I got them both. We all know what happened the last time these two were paired together in their primes.

Football immortality.

As if it wasn’t enough to have the No. 1 and No. 2 pass rushers in team history, I decided to go from impressive to unprecedented by selecting Gerald McCoy in the third round. McCoy’s 42 sacks are fourth all-time in the franchise’s record books, and he was the only player left to select that had even half the sacks Sapp and Rice do.

Doug Williams led the Bucs to three playoff appearances – Photo: Tampa Bay Buccaneers

With not much of a rich quarterback history in Tampa Bay, I decided to grab Doug Williams in the fourth before Scott Reynolds could get his hands on him. Though Williams didn’t win his Super Bowl in Tampa Bay, he is Top 5 in passing yards, passing touchdowns and QB wins in the franchise’s history.

Finally, I went with a wild card to round out my monstrous defensive line by selecting Michael Bennett to play the edge opposite Rice. I’m going to say it: Bennett should still be a Buc to this day. The fact that the old regime let him get away is a travesty, and Tampa Bay fans have had to watch him be a dominant force on a team that wasn’t their own since 2012. He and McCoy are good friends, so reuniting them as well as the duo of Rice and Sapp means reuniting the two most talented DT-DE combos the franchise has ever had, now on one (hypothetical) line.

Click to the last page to see how Reynolds graded his first five picks.