The Buccaneers’ best Super Bowl memory is Derrick Brooks’ pick six

The Super Bowl is coming up, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are on the outside looking in, once again. As they have been for every year of their existence, bar one: the 2002 season, which culminated in a dominant beating down of the Oakland Raiders. Jon Gruden was on the sidelines for the Bucs, and is now coaching the other team again, for added nostalgia.

The Bucs’ best Super Bowl moment to me, is Derrick Brooks’ pick six in Super Bowl XXXVII. It’s been shown so many times, but Gene Deckerhoff’s shouts never cease to thrill me. “There it is! The dagger’s in! We’re gonna win the Super Bowl!” Can’t beat that for a Bucs Super Bowl memory.

The play itself was perfect for that Bucs defense, too. The team was trying to close out a game, and dropping into soft zone defenses. And while Rich Gannon tried to find the hole over the middle, Brooks jumped in from nowhere and grabbed the ball out of the air. Fooled the quarterback, like he did so many times.

Of course, that’s not quite the most memorable play in Bucs history—that’d be the one that got them to the big game: Ronde Barber’s pick six in the NFC Championship, against the Philadelphia Eagles, in the final game in the old Veterans Stadium before it was demolished. That play is legendary. Brooks’ pick six is merely awesome.