Remembering a great season.
Sometimes the way Joe and fellow fans bang away on keyboards complaining about Bucs subjects (partly because the Bucs are this-close to making a major postseason splash) it’s impossible to see the forest for the trees.
We are living in one of the two golden ages of Bucs football.
The late 90s/early aughts were the first Super Bowl era. This decade is the second Super Bowl era.
Those two periods sandwiched the horror show known as The Lost Decade, which was so bad it even swallowed good players.
Take Lavonte David. His 2013 season was spectacular. But it was all washed away from people’s memories because of the Bucs going 4-12, firing then-Bucs commander Greg Schiano and replacing him with lousy Lovie Smith.
Joe still gets the shivers remembering those days.
Over at BSPN, friend of Joe, Aaron Schatz, the developer of DVOA and the former ringleader of Football Outsiders (RIP) typed a column on really good players with spectacular seasons on terrible teams.
David and the 2013 Bucs made Schatz’s list (Joe isn’t surprised; Schatz may be David’s biggest cheerleader in the national media).
David has played for much better Buccaneers teams, including the 2020 squad that won the Super Bowl. However, 2013 — when the team finished 4-12 — was the only time he was a first-team All-Pro.
David had five interceptions, seven sacks and 13 quarterback hits. I keep track of a stat called defeats, which combines turnovers, tackles for loss and plays to prevent a conversion on third or fourth down. David had 52 of them in 2013, the second-highest total since at least 1989, behind only J.J. Watt’s 2012 season in Houston.
Schatz regularly takes to Twitter or his podcast and moans how people don’t consider or even think of David as one of the all-time greats.
Schatz has even written that he has offered, free of charge, to make David’s presentation to the Pro Football Hall of Fame selectors — if David ever makes it that far. He should. Someday. (Attention, Ira!)
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