Buccaneers Officially Swing A Big Stick For Simeon Rice’s Hall Of Fame Candidacy
July 20th, 2017
It’s about damn time!
Joe has been calling for the big voices and the big guns to come out hollering and ranting and educating for the Buccaneers worthy of the Hall of Fame.
Guys like Father Dungy and Chucky haven’t done nearly enough to prop up their ex-players for Hall of Fame induction, a too-political process that gets stickier every year as candidates worthy of consideration pile up.
The big name ex-Bucs also haven’t been vocal enough, either, for their brethren like Simeon Rice, Ronde Barber and John Lynch.
That written, the love has to start at home.
So Joe is very pleased to see the beautiful “Canton Calling” piece done on Rice by Scott Smith of Buccaneers.com. Joe writes “beautiful” because the graphic presentation is fantastic and it makes you want to punch Hall of Fame voters in the face for ignoring Rice for so long.
Particularly, a graphic comparing Rice’s achievements to those of Hall of Fame defensive end Michael Strahan is stunning, as is Rice’s average of .7 sacks per game through his career, which leaves multiple Hall of Fame DEs in the rearview mirror.
Soak in the full feature here. It’s worth at least a few minutes.
Last week, Joe transcribed Derrick Brooks speaking tactfully on SiriusXM NFL Radio on behalf of Rice, strongly implying that this year’s DE inductee for the Hall of Fame, Jason Taylor, is no Simeon Rice.
What’s next for Rice? He has to get past the preliminary vote and be a “semifinalist,” which means get to the final 25, which is whittled down to 15 finalists that are actually presented for a vote in January.
Ira Kaufman delivered a hell of an education on Hall politics early this month on his podcast.
July 20th, 2017 at 11:44 am
Great player. Perhaps one of the best ever at his position. Again they will continue to point out his “Robin” role to Sapp and coverage sacks.
July 20th, 2017 at 11:45 am
Rice deserves to make it. Its like I tell my kids, being nice cost nothing. Rice would be in if he wasn’t an Ahole. Look at him vs Strahan… the only difference was one treated people respectfuly so the voters liked him. Never got why he came after Gruden so hard after he was cut. He was cut because he was done, it happens. He went on to last a few weeks in Denver and a few weeks in Indy, then a few weeks in CFL or wherever. He was done.
Seemed like the guy took too many games off. I loved him. He made everyone on our Dline better.
July 20th, 2017 at 11:46 am
I happen to believe that the ONLY way that Rice gets in this year is if the Bucs start strong, really really strong, lock up a playoff spot at the time semifinalists become finalists, AND make it to the Super Bowl so that the voters in the final room have a fan favorite from the NFC Champion to haul out before the crowd on Super Bowl Sunday.
It’s how Ricky Williams got in for the Saints and he’d deserved a spot in the Hall for years.
So, sure, I’m rooting for Rice. But I’m a pessimist, I just don’t think it’s going to happen in what is, other things being equal, a big-market-biased process. I sure hope I’m wrong, I’d like to see him get in, preferably along with our Super Bowl appearance.
July 20th, 2017 at 12:05 pm
For as big of a mouth and platform for it that “Chucky” has, and for that same mouth to have once proclaimed that he had a life-size fathead of Simeon in his son’s room because that’s how big of a fan he was of Rice; “Chucky’s” silence has been the most deafening. “Double Standards” Dungy’s silence on Lynch should surprise no one. Unless you played in his defense, Dungy wasn’t going to even look at you square eyed, much less be vocal about what you were doing wrong. Does the fact that he won’t take up for Lynch publicly to HOF voters really surprise anyone when he couldn’t even take up for his defenses & the job they used to do for his own inept offenses?
July 20th, 2017 at 12:17 pm
This is why Ira has it tough. This was such a great defensive unit that was handcuffed by sub-par offensive schemes. I still wish Dungy would’ve paired himself with a Norv Turner or someone along those lines just to see what would’ve happened. I really liked Dungy but his philosophies really handcuffed the offensive side of the ball. 1 Super Bowl realistically could’ve been 3.
Now Ira is in a race versus time to get as many of these guys in, knowing full well there is a bias on just how many can come from one side of the ball on a one Super Bowl team. Sapp, Brooks, Lynch, Rice and Barber all deserve it, but it is nearly unimaginable that 5 could get in from that group. 3 will be an outstanding job. 4 incredible. 5.. well that might just be impossible
July 20th, 2017 at 12:30 pm
Lynch, Barber, Rice, Alstott and Dunn all have the #s and are worthy of HOF consideration.
Unfortunately only 2 of those 5 have a realistic chance of being voted in.
July 20th, 2017 at 12:32 pm
1 Super Bowl realistically could’ve been 3….
cant blame dungy for that….
-blame the refs for goofing on the Bert Emmanuel catch….
-blame chucky for blowing up the team…..
to say his offense handcuffed the team is BS….numerous teams have won with great defense and little offense….ravens (twice)…Denver(with manning)….seahwaks….patriots first SB vs rams….
all those teams had great defenses and an average offense…they were able to run the ball and minimize turnovers…..
rice isn’t getting the love because of his image and the way he treated the media….SIMPLE AS THAT….same thing happened to Charles Haley….why else would it take so long for a guy with 5 SB rings to get into the HOF…..GO BUCS!!!
July 20th, 2017 at 12:56 pm
Simeon is way more deserving than Morton Anderson, Tony Boselli, Isaac Bruce, Terrell Davis, Brian Dawkins, & Jerry Jones
July 20th, 2017 at 1:06 pm
“big stick” is waaaay overplayed/overused
July 20th, 2017 at 1:45 pm
Rice is WAY more deserving than Tony Boselli, Isaac Bruce and Brian Dawkins? C’mon dude. Rice deserves to get in, but to say he’s WAY more deserving than those guys makes me think you didn’t watch them play. Each of those 3 were among the best to EVER play at their respective positions. No disrespect to Rice, just proper respect to the others.
July 20th, 2017 at 1:45 pm
Hardy Nickerson also belongs in the HOF.
July 20th, 2017 at 3:21 pm
Love Hardy and Alstott but they are not HOF worthy.
July 20th, 2017 at 3:28 pm
@813… blame Dungy not the refs for the loss. Held the best offense in the last 30 years to under 13 points and you can’t score enough to win because you run a jv highschool football team on the offensive side of the ball. Should have been to the SB more than once in the Dungy era and went zip. He didn’t handcuff the O, he totally crushed it. He played that game to score 9 points.
Also, Gruden didn’t blow up the team, we were almost in cap hell when he got here and we were missing 4 premium draft picks .
July 20th, 2017 at 3:32 pm
I feel like Ira can only get one of our guys in… not all for sure. He has a tough job. No one will listen if he goes in and says Barber, rice and lynch deserve to be here. I’d love to see lynch in but guessing Barber has the best shot.
July 20th, 2017 at 4:02 pm
Once again, I have tremendous love, admiration and respect for Tony Dungy and what he did for this organisation, but I am not blinded so much as to say he wasn’t at fault in the manner in which he handled the offensive coordinators and the play calling. I hung around quite a few of the offensive players during this time. I can absolutely 100% say the Bucs were handcuffed offensively, and there was frustration on that side of the ball.
If he didn’t handle is OC’s like he did, he is never fired.
And I agree wholeheartedly regarding Gruden tearing the team up. I remember I was playing at a golf tournament he was at. He had been over served. I knew Sapp and Lynch were gone that day. I heard him, first hand, talking about clearing cap space by letting a few of the high priced defenders go and putting the money on the offensive side of the ball. I was pissed.
The Bert Emanuel call was the correct call based on the rule at that time, which sucks but thats the breaks a Buc fan gets. If it wouldn’t have happened in the final two minutes, it would’ve never been reviewed. If it was for a first down and King could’ve run up and spike it, there wouldn’t have been a review. (I may be wrong but I believe the Bucs actually called a timeout that allowed for the review) The rule was changed solely because of that catch. Even if it would’ve been ruled differently, its not a touchdown, it wasn’t even a first down as King had just been sacked to loose huge yards on the previous play. This was just to get those yards back.
The biggest problem was the Bucs tried to win the game 6-5. That’s how good that defense was. That was a poor game plan.
July 20th, 2017 at 4:23 pm
The biggest problem with the Hall of Fame is the fact that the choices are decided by sports writers.
SPORTS WRITERS!
A bunch of middle aged, fat, little weasels (Ok, many of them, not all of course) that NEVER played the game, and know NOTHING about the sport and what it takes to succeed.
You know who should decide who gets into the Pro Football Hall of Fame ?
Pro Football players and coaches, that’s who.
Having sports writers decide on who gets into the HOF is no different than having a fashion designer decide who gets the “Golden Butt Statue” for Plumber of the Year.
July 20th, 2017 at 4:36 pm
Did I really say Ricky Williams when I was thinking of Rickey Jackson?
Y’all were much too nice, so I’ll call myself out, I’m an idiot.
(bonks head)
July 20th, 2017 at 4:42 pm
I still think Emanuel caught that ball. King wasn’t very good in that game, Dungy was worse. Rice should have been in the HOF before the “gap toothed donkey”.
July 20th, 2017 at 4:44 pm
@ Xandtar: If Ricky Williams wasn’t such a selfish pothead who threw away 2-3 years of the prime of his career, he would have finished with 13000 to 14000 yards rushing and he would have been a shoo-in, imo…
July 20th, 2017 at 4:47 pm
Not just Rice, there are at least 25-30 players and coaches that should have been in the HOF years ago….
Bucs (Yeah, I’m a homer):
Hardy Nickerson
Simeon Rice
John Lynch
Ronde Barber
Jimmie Giles
Coaches:
Don Coryell
Bill Cowner
Marty Schottenheimer
Chuck Knox
Tom Flores
Quarterbacks:
Jim Plunkett
Joe Theismann
Phil Simms
Ken Anderson
Jim Hart
Receivers:
Henry Ellard
Stanley Morgan
Cliff Branch
Running Backs:
Billy Sims
Roger Craig
OL:
Alan Faneca
Jerry Kramer
DL:
Al “Bubba” Baker
Jim Marshall
Harvey Martin
DB’s and Safetys:
Donnie Shell
Ken Riley
Dave Brown
Bobby Boyd
Everson Walls
Linebackers:
Tommy Nobis
July 20th, 2017 at 5:33 pm
yall acting like the rams had a sh!tty defense…..they had some ballers over there….London fletcher…kevin carter…dre bly…..not to mention the greatest show on turf….to say dungy is solely at fault is BS….he made his fair share of mistakes but the bucs were in the dumpster when he arrived…..GO BUCS!!!!
July 20th, 2017 at 6:28 pm
The Joes are on vacation! Crickets here…
July 20th, 2017 at 7:01 pm
813
Its 100% dungy the clown’s fault. He was one dimensional, stubborn and ignorant to offensive football. Dam whyce set him up perfectly with a number of HOF players and dungy failed. 2 playoff wins in six years is failure anyway you look at it. Dungy and his career losing playoff record is an embarrassment
July 20th, 2017 at 8:03 pm
They could have taken the Strahan Rice comp even further. If you take away the last three years of Strahan’s career he had less total sacks than Rice in the same number of seasons.
July 20th, 2017 at 8:07 pm
I’ve posted this before but this thread begs for it again. As for Dungy fighting for Lynch that’ll never happen.
Sam Wyche was the one who found Lynch…a great athlete…his proper spot on the field at safety.
Tony comes in next year and brings in one of his safeties from KC and benches Lynch for his guy. Fortunately for all Buc fans and even TD…Tony’s guy goes down early with an injury and he was forced to play Lynch…the rest is history.
July 20th, 2017 at 8:09 pm
Simeon was a unique personality, but i don’t recall him being particularly adversarial with media types. they just couldn’t interpret half his quotes. He’s suffering the same stigma that Ronde Barber will battle for a hall spot, that he was somehow the product of his situation and not his own greatness. i happen to disagree with that – he came into town as a double digit sacker, remained a double digit sacker, and could do more to change a game once he got near the QB than anybody in his era. every time the bucs were in a key 3rd down, i’d turn to whoever was sitting next to me at RJS or on the couch and say “Simeon Rice, sack-fumble”….and i was right an astonishing number of times. not because i can see the future but because simeon rice was simeon rice. loved seeing him come around the edge with that long arm ready to swat the ball out
July 20th, 2017 at 8:52 pm
I hear by question tnews Buccaneer fanhood for saying the call on the Bert Emanuel play was correct. You sir bring much shame to this message board.
July 20th, 2017 at 10:18 pm
Simeon is definitely deserving of induction into the H of F.
July 20th, 2017 at 10:59 pm
if dungy’s teams did not underachieve both lynch and rice are no brainers hard to reward a team that only won 2 playoff games in 6 years. it’s a shame dungy cost those fine players more success in the playoffs and a gold jacket.
July 21st, 2017 at 1:58 am
Actually it was Bill Walsh (who was Lynch’s coach at Stanford). Wyche mentioned to Walsh that he was looking for a safety and Walsh essentially told him if he didn’t draft Lynch, he was crazy. Lynch talks about this often. And it was Walsh who converted Lynch from a quarterback to a safety.
July 21st, 2017 at 3:10 am
JimmyJack..
Shame.. really. Your bringing ignorance. Please defend the position based on the rules at the time that the Bert Emanuel play was a legal catch.
They changed the rule the next year in the competition committee for goodness sakes to fix the rule so that it would be a catch. It is universally known as “the Bert Emanuel Rule”. If you want to say the rule should’ve been changed earlier, I’ll listen. The rule was stupid and outdated once replay was put into place. But it was the rule, as dumb and stupid as it was.
If you want to promote a conspiracy theory that the NFL officials really wanted “the Greatest Show on Turf” in the Super Bowl and the replay booth was instructed by the commissioner to review that play during the time out to see if they saw anything, I will listen to that, because that is kind of my theory. I do believe if that was Tory Holt making that play, the booth wouldn’t have checked it. The league wanted the Rams in the Super Bowl that year.
The only position that you can logically make is that it was CGI and the league office quickly doctored the tape to make the ball appear to touch the ground when in fact it didn’t.
The facts is, the video shows the ball making contact with the turf. At the time, that was ALL THAT MATTERED. So at the time, it was not a catch.
July 21st, 2017 at 7:49 am
It doesn’t help that we seem to be the forgotten super bowl winning team and that amazing defense we had is always overlooked when pundits discuss greatness.
July 21st, 2017 at 11:56 pm
Simeon Rice perfected the hatchet move on the sack…he taught the following generations of pass rushers how to increase the turnover probability for a strip/sack with it. HOF deserving.