Tampa Bay Buccaneers: What if Jets drafted Warren Sapp?

What really happened in the 1995 Draft.

In reality, Sapp was seen, on the field, as the best player in the 1995 Draft. Off the field, he was seen as the worst. Unfair or not, there were rumors of Sapp having off the field baggage, and an anonymous leak the eve of the draft reported that in college Sapp had tested positive for marijuana and once for cocaine whilst at the University of Miami, reports that both Sapp and his agent at the time Drew Rosenhaus vehemently deny.

At any rate, the league wasn’t convinced, and the team that was seen as a slam dunk to draft Sapp, the New York Jets, passed on him with the ninth pick for Penn State tight end Kyle Brady despite having 1992 first-round pick Johnnie Mitchell at tight end but hey the Jets are gonna Jet.  This caused the team with the tenth pick, the Cleveland Browns coached by Bill Belichick, to panic as their man was unexpectedly swiped and swapped with the San Francisco 49ers for a boatload of future picks, one of which would turn into a little ballplayer named Ray Lewis, who they would draft with that acquired 1996 first-round pick in their first year as the Baltimore Ravens.

The Buccaneers, on the other hand, ended up with Sapp at the 12th pick and traded back into the first round to draft Florida State linebacker Derrick Brooks with the 28th pick, thus obtaining the cornerstones to a championship defense. Let’s take a look at how things could have gone differently had the Jets took a chance on Sapp though.