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About the Author: Scott Reynolds
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FAB 4. Will The Glory Days Return With Brady?
The year 2020 marks my 25th season covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for you, the loyal PewterReport.com reader. As I begin this milestone season, I’m going to spend the next 25 weeks telling some never-before-told Bucs stories and recalling some of my most memorable moments in my professional journey.
Is a return to Tampa Bay’s glory days in store this year with the arrival of six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady? The Glazers, the Buccaneers and the Tampa Bay fan base certainly hope that’s the case over the next couple of years.
As I wrote earlier this week, it’s been over a decade since the Buccaneers were relevant. Brady signing with Tampa Bay instantly makes this team relevant on a nationwide level. Now all the Bucs have to do is win to justify paying Brady $30 million per season.
Patriots QB Tom Brady – Photo by: Getty Images
General manager Jason Licht, head coach Bruce Arians and Glazers are gambling on the fact that Brady can be the difference-maker to get this team back to the playoffs. The last time Tampa Bay made the postseason was back in 2007.
The Bucs have had enough weaponry to have a Top 10 offense for the past several years, and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles laid the foundation last year for what looks to be a potentially dominant defense in 2020 and beyond. With newly re-signed pass rusher Jason Pierre Paul at age 32, Arians turning 68 this year, and Brady turning 43, the Bucs have a small window of opportunity to not just get to the playoffs, but also win the team’s second Lombardi Trophy.
The sense of urgency with bringing in Brady reminds me of the mega-trade for Keyshawn Johnson in 2000. Johnson was the former No. 1 overall pick by the Jets and was a national media star in New York. His arrival in Tampa helped put the Bucs in the national spotlight.
Two years later, the Glazers made another bold move with a mega-trade for head coach Jon Gruden. Those moves, plus some splash free agent signings of quarterback Brad Johnson and defensive and Simeon Rice in 2001, helped the Bucs get past the wild card round and into the Super Bowl for the team’s first and only championship in 2002.
I remember walking into the locker room back in those glory days. It was a Pewter Pro Bowl locker room for a couple of years.
Who would I talk to first in my 45-minute media window?
Bucs DE Simeon Rice and DT Warren Sapp – Photo by: Getty Images
Warren Sapp is over there holding court, while across the locker room Johnson is doing the same.
Over there is Derrick Brooks and John Lynch and Ronde Barber.
And media-shy fullback Mike Alstott is coming out of the equipment room. Maybe I can grab him for a quick quote.
And here comes Rice, who always has something interesting to say. Booger McFarland has a way with words, too.
Maybe I can squeeze in some time for a few of my go-to-guys – the non-A-listers like Ellis Wyms, John Howell and Greg Spires that really give me the good inside scoop.
Less than a decade later, the star power was virtually gone from One Buc Place – and with it, the Bucs’ glory days. No more Gruden, no more Brooks, Lynch, Sapp, Rice or Alstott.
No more national media and no more relevance for Tampa Bay.
Until now. Thank goodness.
I began my career covering the Buccaneers in 1995, walking in the door with Sapp and Brooks, and I witnessed the rise and fall of this team in Tampa Bay. Just like you, I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting over a decade for the rise of this franchise again.
Raymond James Stadium – Photo by: Getty Images
Over this past underachieving, disappointing decade, I’ve really felt for you Buccaneers fans and PewterReport.com readers. You spend your hard-earned money on season tickets, only to see two home wins last year and absolutely no home victories during Lovie Smith’s first season in Tampa Bay in 2014. You often leave Ray-Jay disappointed.
You spend your precious time reading about your favorite team on websites like PewterReport.com. Too many Sundays each fall you are left frustrated.
I’ve been waiting for the narrative around these pewter pirates to change for a decade. I want to write a different storyline. The losing affects us Bucs beat writers, too.
It’s not like we’re necessarily rooting for the team because we have to maintain our objectivity as journalists. But we’re certainly not rooting against the Bucs – and we all feel like it is time to cover a winner again in Tampa Bay.
We see the time and the blood, sweat and tears that the players, coaches and front office members put in to try to build a winner, and emerge victorious on Sundays. We see, hear and read the frustration from the Bucs fan base.
Sometimes I’m actually jealous of the fans. You get to leave the stadium early if you want to because the Bucs are getting blown out at home. You also get to drink beer or some booze afterwards to help drown their sorrows after a loss.
I have to watch the loss, talk to Arians about the loss after the game, talk to players about the loss in the locker room, and then listen to them talk about the loss again as I transcribe their quotes from my recorder. Then I get to write about the loss and talk about the loss on the Pewter Nation Podcast. Then on my way home, I get text messages from friends and family members that want to talk about the loss.
Bucs fans – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR
Then I get to grab a beer or make an old fashioned when I get home four hours after the game has ended. It’s been kind of depressing over the last decade to tell you the truth.
But hey, I get paid to watch football for a living. So don’t feel sorry for me.
Just know that we’re all in this together in Tampa Bay when it comes to the Buccaneers.
And the coronavirus, unfortunately.
We all want to see Brady’s arrival coincide with a return to the glory days in Tampa Bay.
Stay tuned for another Bucs story from yesteryear in next week’s SR’s Fab 5. And if you missed my previous Bucs memories from the past 24 years of covering the team, click on the links below.
