The end of the Josh Freeman era began when the Buccaneers drafted Mike Glennon in the third round, but the same old struggles remained. While Glennon felt like a potential upgrade and managed to have a positive TD-to-INT ratio over the course of his career in Tampa Bay, there wasn't a ton to love.
Glennon's first season was a disaster, and things only went downhill from there. a 4-9 record as a starter in 2013 was followed by a 1-4 record the next year. Glennon spent another two seasons with the Bucs but didn't play a single game during Jameis Winston's rookie season and was merely a Band-Aid option in 2016.
There's an element of tragedy to Chris Simms and his time with the Buccaneers.
He was a second round pick out of Texas and a pretty notable swing for Jon Gruden to take in terms of finding a guy he thought he could develop. This wasn't some unknown kid from a small school, this was the son of a Hall of Fame Super Bowl champion who started for the Texas Longhorns.
It was a big deal.
Simms showed promise and helped lead the Buccaneers to the playoffs in his second season, but his career never went anywhere after that. He had a horrific spleen injury that derailed his momentum in Tampa Bay and he was out of the league after just five seasons.
There's also the franchise altering move that he may have ended up blocking, through no fault of his own. The year after the Bucs drafted Simms, they used the No. 5 overall pick on Cadillac Williams and by doing so passed on a kid named Aaron Rodgers.
Nowadays a team probably doubles up and takes a guy like Rodgers even if it had selected a quarterback in the second round a year before -- heck, the Cardinals drafted Top 10 quarterbacks in back-to-back years. It was a bit of a faux pas back then, and might have prevented the Bucs from taking Rodgers.