How Warrick Dunn escaped.
Way cool story from Chucky Bucs history and how he was initially denied the chance to coach one of the best running backs in Bucs history, Warrick Dunn.
Oh yes, Chucky eventually did get a chance to coach Dunn, in Chucky’s final season with the Bucs and Dunn’s final season in the NFL, 2008.
Though Joe has never had the chance to ask Chucky about Dunn personally, Joe had heard through many sources how badly he wanted Dunn. The year the Bucs got Chucky (2002), Dunn left to get a bag from the Dixie Chicks.
Turned out to be a bad football move by Dunn as the Bucs won the Super Bowl that season.
Well, Chucky told the story of why he initially didn’t get the chance to coach Dunn. Chucky had the great Ricky Williams in his Tampa lair and Williams asked Chucky for the best running backs he ever coached.
Roger Craig, Ricky Watters, Josh Jacobs and Mike Alstott made the list. Williams then asked Chucky about Dunn and Chucky told the story.
“Well, I got Warrick after his heyday in Tampa,” Chucky said. “He went to Atlanta and came back with me for just one year, but he was a hell of a back.
“I got traded to Tampa Bay and I was sitting in a meeting and Rich McKay was the GM, and he said, ‘Coach, do you want Simeon Rice or Warrick Dunn?’
“I go, ‘What?’ [McKay repeated] ‘You want Simeon Rice or Warrick Dunn?’
“I said, ‘Well, the last coach got them both, I’ll take them both.’ He said, ‘Obviously you don’t understand our cap situation.’ I said, ‘Obviously, I don’t.”
So it was an either/or situation for Chucky and it seems like Chucky didn’t want to break up the great Bucs defense. Chucky said then, and often says now, if you don’t have a closer late in the game to put a quarterback on his ass, you can’t win a Super Bowl.
Rice was that closer.
“So we ended up signing Simeon and had to let Warrick go” Chucky said. “And he goes right in our division with McKay to Atlanta. And rivalry was born.”
Dunn would have been the perfect back for Chucky’s West Coast offense. Dunn was an underrated inside runner and we all know what he could do when he got to the outside.
And of course, Dunn had excellent hands.
Everything worked out for Chucky and the Bucs. Even though Michael Pittman was never in Dunn’s league, Pittman likely had his best game when you needed it the most: In the Super Bowl.
The Bucs’ first Super Bowl win.
Hat tip: @RJBrown129
Ricky Williams flipped the script on me and asked ME who are some of the best running backs I got to coach! pic.twitter.com/0G4EiJ2XvD
— Jon Gruden (@BarstoolGruden) June 5, 2026