TAMPA, Fla. — Close your eyes, and you can still see the carnage they left behind.
Broken quarterbacks and frightened receivers. Befuddled coordinators and furious fans. For 10 years, the Tampa Bay defense traveled the NFL countryside leaving a trail of punts and turnovers wherever it went.
A top-10 scoring defense every season from 1996 to 2005, six playoff appearances and one Super Bowl title, all while dragging around an offense that was usually more burden than complement.
So tell me, in retrospect, how many Hall of Famers is that worth?
Two? Because, for the longest time, that’s all we had with Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks. Three? Because that’s the latest tally after John Lynch was enshrined last weekend. Four? Because that’s the current hope now that Ronde Barber has entered the conversation.
Imagine that. Four potential Hall of Famers that stood side-by-side in the same defensive huddle week after week. That’s not just unusual, it is practically unprecedented.
The 1985 Bears are considered by many to be the standard for NFL defenses, yet they only have three players on that side of the ball in the Hall. The 2000 Ravens were otherworldly on defense. They have two Hall of Famers.
The freaking Dolphins went 36-5-1 from 1971-73, won three conference titles and two Super Bowls, finished first in the league in scoring defense in back-to-back seasons and have one Hall of Famer on defense.
The one exception is Pittsburgh’s defense of the 1970s, and that is as it should be. Pittsburgh won four Super Bowls in six years and, accordingly, five members of the Steel Curtain have busts in Canton.
So, again, are the Bucs worthy of four Hall of Famers?
(Technically, the Bucs already have four Hall of Famers from that era if you include coach Tony Dungy, but this is a player-only debate.)
It’s an interesting argument from several angles. While the Bucs won only one Super Bowl, they may have had the longest sustained run of excellence on defense of any franchise in league history. So, yes, I would argue that four Hall of Famers is not out of line.
And so now the question is whether Barber’s career, outside of the team’s success, is worthy for enshrinement. And that’s a tricky proposition because Barber was something of a trailblazer at his position.
Typically, when you think about cornerbacks, you focus on pass coverage and interceptions. Compile 50 or more interceptions in your career, and you’ve put yourself in pretty good position to be wearing a gold sport coat one summer day.
Barber, with 47 interceptions, falls a little short of that faux standard, but there are extenuating circumstances. In Dungy’s Tampa-2 defensive scheme, Barber played the nickel back role. In previous generations, the nickel back (i.e. a fifth defensive back) was typically the third-best cornerback on a team and only came in for obvious passing situations.
The Bucs turned the nickel back into a weapon. Barber would line up in the slot, which meant he might be covering a receiver, a tight end or a running back. It also meant he might blitz, as if he were a linebacker. The position required versatility and smarts, and Barber had both.
“Ronde, you just look at his numbers, you look at everything. I played with the guy so I saw it firsthand,” Lynch said during a Q&A session the day before he was enshrined. “As mentally tough of a player as I’ve ever been around. The numbers speak for themselves. I think he, along with Charles (Woodson), redefined playing that nickel slot position. He could blitz, he could cover, he was always around the ball, he scored touchdowns. He’s a Hall of Fame player. He belongs.”
That hybrid role allowed Barber to become the first — and still only — player in NFL history with at least 45 interceptions and 25 sacks. You combine that with 14 touchdowns on returns (fourth in NFL history) and more than 1,200 tackles and it’s not hard to make a compelling case.
As for the lower interception total, voters need to consider the changing styles in the game. When Pittsburgh Hall of Fame corner Donnie Shell entered the league in 1974, for instance, there was an average of 2.75 interceptions every game. When Barber was a rookie in 1997, that number was down to 1.99 and it continued to drop.
So will Barber eventually make the cut?
The odds are in his favor. He was one of 15 finalists on the 2021 ballot, and that bodes well for the future. In the 10 elections from 2010-19, there were 58 players who were finalists and 53 of them have been elected, two are still on the ballot and only three have dropped off.
“Ronde Barber,” Lynch said near the end of his acceptance speech on Sunday, “your time’s coming, man.”
