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Okay @SBNation, this one’s for all teams: Add a football legend to your roster. What happens? http://t.co/ZYWdJccARv #GMCPlaybook
— Marshall Faulk (@marshallfaulk) October 29, 2014
Which former legend would I add to the Buccaneers right now?
There are so many answers I could give here. I could look to some of the best players in Bucs history -- Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp, but then the Bucs already have Gerald McCoy and Lavonte David. They could find bigger upgrades at different positions.
I could look at quarterback, but the Bucs don't exactly have a long history of quality quarterback play. Doug Williams was promising before leaving for the USFL, and Vinny Testaverde eventually turned into a solid starter, but there's no one who could come into this team, take over at quarterback and immediately produce a high-powered offense.
The Bucs have also always lacked quality offensive linemen, but they could add Paul Gruber -- a ten-year starter at left tackle, and one of the most consistent players the Bucs have ever had. How much of a difference would he make, though? The rest of the line would still be a sieve.
No, I'd go for the late, great Lee Roy Selmon -- for my money, the best player to have ever suited up in a Bucs uniform. Watching him play the game of football is a delight. I never got a chance to see him live -- I wasn't even born when he hung up his cleats -- but I've seen a lot of games from his time, and Selmon was as dominant as I've seen them. Comparing him to J.J. Watt is not out of place.
If we added Selmon to the Bucs defense this instant, the Bucs' pass rush issues would immediately be fixed. He and Gerald McCoy would be truly unstoppable side by side: there is no good way to dedicate extra blockers to both of those players, which would be exactly what teams would have to do to stop them.
And that pass rush would be so devastating its effects should be felt all over the rest of the defense, which hasn't exactly been blameless.
Even so, this team has more issues than one player can fix. The offensive line is a mess, the running game is going nowhere, and Mike Glennon is a nice game manager who can't take over an offense by himself. Even with Selmon, the defense will still struggle at times: the secondary has been a mess, and the Bucs have not been very good at holding up in coverage at any level of the defense.
Still, I don't think any other player would have the impact that Lee Roy Selmon would have. It's just that even his addition wouldn't be enough to get the Bucs more than six wins.
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