Two years ago, in the heavily-quarantined summer of 2020, I tried to fill some of the down time before training camp by doing a countdown of every jersey number and their Tampa Bay Buccaneer occupants from 1-99. The idea was to decide, basically, who owned that number in franchise history, who had the top Buccaneer career in that jersey so far. Here, for instance, were the selections from 31-40. The interesting part about that range is that, just two years later, we suddenly have a very good answer to what had been a wasteland of a history at number 31.
Some of the jersey numbers, like 63 (Lee Roy Selmon) were very easy to assign. Some, like 83 (Dave Moore and Vincent Jackson) were a lot harder. I even briefly messed one up, originally giving number 7 to quarterback Jeff Garcia over kicker Martin Gramatica because I put too much weight on positional value. Don’t worry, I quickly realized the mistake and issued a mea culpa.
But I’m not here to dredge up my past mistakes. What got me to thinking about that exercise from two years – which really was a lot of fun – is that there is a new group of Buccaneer draft picks who just recently got their first NFL jerseys, from defensive lineman Logan Hall (#90) to outside linebacker Andre Anthony (#46). Hall’s assignment is particularly interesting in that he is taking over directly after the Buccaneer career of the player who I assigned that jersey number to in the 2020 countdown, Jason Pierre-Paul.
At the time, the Pierre-Paul pick seemed a bit premature but with two more productive seasons tacked on afterward, I feel much better about it. JPP is Mister 90 in Buccaneers history. But will that always remain true?
Barring a late return to the roster by Pierre-Paul and a subsequent shuffling of jersey numbers, Logan Hall will be wearing #90 in 2022 and beyond for the Buccaneers. It would obviously be a great outcome for the team if Hall plays well enough in the years to come to put him in the conversation with Pierre-Paul…
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