For those who have been living under a rock in a cave without access to television or the internet (kinda like I have the past week) our man Warren Sapp has announced his retirement. It would have been nice to have seen Sapp ride off into the sunset last season after he led all defensive tackles in sacks as opposed to this season when Sapp managed to garner three personal fouls in a minute. Sapp was the player every opposing fan loved to hate, but hated to admit they would want Sapp on their team.It's a testament to Sapp's dominance that he is a lock to get into Canton (only one other Buc, i.e. Derrick Brooks, can make the same claim). Let's look at Sapp's credentials:
'99 Defensive Player of the Year
7 Pro Bowls
96.5 sacks over 13 seasons (7.4 sacks a season)
'03 Super Bowl Champion
By comparison Lee Roy Selmon was elected to six Pro Bowls, won Defensive Player of the Year in 1979 and recorded 78.5 sacks over 9 seasons (8.7 sacks a season).
Sapp's critics will likely point to his "controversies" with Mike Sherman when he was the Packers head coach and skipping through the Steelers warmups, overlooking that in both instances Sapp was not the one who initiated the confrontations (Sherman approached Sapp over a block which Packers player Chad Clifton admitted was clean and the Steelers Lee Flowers had taunted the Bucs as Paper Champions before the game). Even replays of the 3 personal fouls against Sapp a few weeks ago show he never touched an official.
By the way, gotta love Sapp's announcement at his website, QBKilla.com.
2 comments:
just wanted to mentoin you left one buc that will be a hall of famer someday. Cant leave out ronde barber. he will without a doubt be a hall of famer
i'm not sold on ronde as a HOFer just yet. he has some impressive stats but i get the feeling a number of voters don't consider him to be one of the dominant corners of his time and more the product of a very successful system. not saying those feelings are correct, just that they will likely keep ronde out of canton.
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