The Pro Football Hall of Fame announced its initial list of candidates for the Class of 2025 and nine of them have ties to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Most notably, Warrick Dunn, the third-leading rusher in franchise history, and Simeon Rice, a 2002 playoff hero, are among the 167 former players nominated for enshrinement.
Other players on the list of candidates who played portions of their careers in Tampa include tackle Lomas Brown, quarterback Jeff Garcia, running back Thomas Jones, punter Sean Landeta, guard Logan Mankins, fullback Lorenzo Neal and cornerback Aqib Talib.
The Bucs selected Dunn with the 12th overall pick in the 1997 draft and he went on to capture the Associated PressOffensive Rookie of the Year trophy. Dunn played six seasons in Tampa (1997-2001, 2008), with six years in between with the Atlanta Falcons, and he is the only player in NFL history to record 7,500 yards from scrimmage with two different franchises. For the Buccaneers, he amassed 4,986 rushing yards and 2,704 rushing yards, scored 28 total touchdowns and went to two Pro Bowls.
Rice joined the Buccaneers as a free agent in 2001 after five seasons in Arizona and proved to be the final piece in what would become one of the best defenses in NFL history. From 2001-05, he led the NFL with 67.5 sacks, adding to his career total of 122.0. He earned two Pro Bowl invitations as a Buccaneer and was a first-team All-Pro in 2002 on the team that went on to capture the Super Bowl XXXVII championship. Rice racked up 4.0 sacks during the Bucs' playoff run, including 2.0 in the Super Bowl win over the Oakland Raiders.
Brown was also a member of that 2002 Super Bowl team in the last of his 18 seasons in the NFL. Garcia was the Buccaneers' starting quarterback for most of the 2007 and 2008 seasons, earning a Pro Bowl berth in 2007. The Bucs acquired Jones, a former first round pick by Arizona, in a trade in 2003 and he resurrected his career after a slow three-year start with the Cardinals. He went on to play 12 seasons in the league and produce 12,614 yards from scrimmage.
Landeta was the Buccaneers' punter in 1997, when the team produced its first playoff season in 15 years. Tampa Bay traded for Mankins, a long-time Patriot standout, in August of 2014 and he started for two seasons in Tampa, earning his seventh Pro Bowl appearance in 2014. Neal, one of the best blocking fullbacks of his era, was a Buccaneer in 1998 and was instrumental in the team recording 2,148 rushing yards, the third most in a single season in franchise history. The Buccaneers drafted Talib in the first round in 2008 and he picked off 18 passes in 58 games with the team.
The initial list of 167 nominees will be reduced to 50 by a screening committee, and the shorter list will be announced in October. That group will then be cut down to 25 semi-finalists later in the season. In January, Hall of Fame voters will produce a list of 15 finalists from that group and then vote on up to five becoming the modern-era portion of the Class of 2025. The new Hall of Famers will be revealed during the annual NFL Honors show on the eve of the Super Bowl.
