The Pro Football Hall of Fame will announce the Class of 2020 the night before Super Bowl LIV at the NFL Honors in Miami at the Adrienne Arsht Center.
For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their fans, they’ll be watching anxiously to see if former franchise legend John Lynch makes it into the Hall on his seventh try. As exciting as Lynch’s possible induction is, there are a few former Bucs teammates who also deserve Hall of Fame consideration.
Earlier, I wrote about Tiki Barber coming to the defense of his brother, Ronde, who is arguably one of the greatest players ever to don a Bucs jersey. But, let’s not forget about defensive end Simeon Rice, who was also an integral part of the Bucs defense that helped lead them to a Super Bowl XXXVII title.
Rice spent the majority of his 12-year career with the Bucs, and the defensive end had a career-best 15.5 sacks the year the team won the Super Bowl. And, as Jenna Laine of ESPN pointed out the other year, Rice’s 122 career sacks are second-most among players not enshrined in Canton, Ohio, behind Leslie O’Neal (132.5). Even though he hasn’t played since 2007, Rice’s 122 career sacks still rank 20th all time.
Rice was an extremely productive defensive end throughout his career. In eight of his 12 seasons, he had 10-plus sacks. As the third pick in the 1996 NFL Draft, you’d think someone that well-known who exceeded the expectations of most high draft picks (and helped a once-lowly franchise capture it’s first Lombardi Trophy), would be a shoe-in for Canton, yet Rice remains on the outside looking in.
Still, he can always brag about sacking current Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich during Leftwich’s days as the quarterback of the Jacksonville Jaguars. That’s something at least.
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