Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Who should represent 2020 team on America’s Game?
Who should be interviewed about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2020 season?
In case you happened to miss it, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the defending Super Bowl champions. As such, they will go down in the NFL history books, along with any other accolades one chooses to hoist upon them. One of the perks that come with winning the Super Bowl, is your team gets featured on NFL Network’s America’s Game. It isn’t quite a trip to the White House but isn’t insignificant either.
In 2006, NFL Network ran separate documentaries of the 20 greatest Super Bowl champions at that time. Once that was done, they aired the documentaries on the other 20 teams that weren’t ranked (such as the 2002 Buccaneers). Since then, NFL Network will put out a new annual special of their acclaimed specials on that last season’s winner. Each documentary only features interview accounts on the season’s story by three to four members of the organization. More often than not they are the coach, quarterback, and a defensive player, with some exceptions. It all depends on who was an integral of the team’s Super Bowl story. The documentary on the 2002 Buccaneers was told by head coach Jon Gruden, safety John Lynch, and defensive tackle Warren Sapp. So the question now is, who should tell the story on the 2020 Buccaneers team?
Related Story. More water cooler talk: 2002 or 2020?. light
The obvious answer for starters would be Tom Brady. This season was pretty much all about him, and whether or not anyone wants to admit it, this Buccaneers team wouldn’t have reached the promised land with Jameis Winston, or many if not any, other quarterbacks. Believe it or not though, during his illustrious career, Brady only appeared on one episode of America’s Game. It was for the 2001 New England Patriots, the first of what would be his seven Super Bowl wins (and possibly counting). Rob Gronkowski, on the other hand, has appeared in the 2018, and 2014 Patriots episodes. He is actually very good and well-spoken in them, so he can always fill the “veteran free agent signing” quota. Coaches used to be a mainstay so Bruce Arians is always an option, but a head coach hasn’t been featured on America’s Game since the 2013 Seattle Seahawks with Pete Carroll. So who knows what the producers are thinking there.
Leonard Fournette took the NFL world by storm by morphing into “Playoff Lenny”, so that could
always be fun to capitalize off of as well. It would give him one last moment in the sun before he potentially leaves. As far as the defense goes, there’s really no going wrong. Young kings on the unit like Shaq Barrett, Lavonte David, Devin White, or even Antoine Winfiled Jr. would suffice, especially after Winfield chucked up the duces in Tyreek Hill’s face in the Super Bowl. Ndamukong Suh and Jason Pierre-Paul would even be good veteran options as well.
The choice of narrator is always interesting to see as well. NFL Films usually rolls out the red carpet for that spot. The 2002 Buccaneers had Laurence Fishburne narrating their documentary for reference. Lately they try and get famous fans of the team to narrate while back then they used celebrities with the coolest voices this side of James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman. Suffice to say Morpheus fits that bill.
At the end of the day, there’s probably a lot of folks who really don’t care about this. However, as someone who has spent a disgusting amount of time watching America’s Game, Gronkowski for offense, Arians for the coach, and Barrett for defense as he helped turn the unit around are who we’ll go with here. Feel free to share your thoughts, or simply wait until the documentary comes out, it’s entirely up to you. We’re just providing some water cooler talk here.