Rich Eisen said it best when summarizing Lavonte David. The long-time Tampa Bay Buccaneers appeared on The Rich Eisen Show last week to a spot-on introduction by Eisen.
"Each time [David] comes on [Eisen's show], he stays with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, keeps playing football, keeps balling out, wins the division, or the Super Bowl, or both. That's what happens."
With David set to enter his 14th season in the NFL and having turned 35 years old in January, no one would have batted an eye if he opted to call it a career and hang up the cleats. That's not what happened though, as David is returning for a 14th season, all spent in Tampa with the Bucs.
It turns out, Bucs fans have Baker Mayfield to thank for David's return. When the conversation shifted to Mayfield, David didn't hesitate to give him credit on convincing him to return for another season.
"Baker reached out to me as well over the offseason. He knew I was contemplating retirement or coming back and he reached out and said he'd love to do it again with me one time — another time" David told Eisen. "The way the season ended last year, we weren't happy about it. We felt like we could've gone further than we went. So you know, why not do it again?"
Lavonte David credits Baker Mayfield for convincing him to continue playing
The Bucs spent a second-round pick on David in the 2012 NFL Draft. The Nebraska product immediately made an impact for the Buccaneers defense and started all 16 games as a rookie. David's durability is something Bucs fans love about him, as he's started double-digit games in each of his 13 seasons and has had triple digit tackles in all but two of them. He truly is the ageless wonder.
It's cool that Mayfield played a part in David opting to return for a 14th season because watching the Buccaneers without David on defense would just be straight-up weird. Hopefully he can ride off into the retirement sunset next offseason after the Bucs win the franchise's third Super Bowl title.