Tampa Bay Buccaneers Hall of Shame: Worst draft pick and more

After celebrating the Bucs by highlighting their players who someday could be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, we flip the script to give you Tampa Bay's Hall of Shame.

Worst breakup: Doug Williams

Tampa Bay fans didn't have much to cheer for before Williams joined the team in 1978. After the QB led the team to its first winning season in 1979 and three playoff appearances in four years, notoriously cheap owner Hugh Culverhouse declined to pay Williams what he was worth. In protest, he sat out the 1983 season. 

A year later, Williams signed with the USFL's Oklahoma Outlaws, telling reporters that the Outlaws topped Tampa Bay's $400,000-per-year offer, per United Press International. The USFL went under in 1985, so Williams returned to the NFL in 1986 with Washington. 

In Washington's 42-10 blowout win over Denver in the Super Bowl the next season, Williams was named MVP after going 18-for-29 for 340 yards and four TD passes. 

Tampa Bay, meanwhile, went 26-85 (.234) during the rest of the 1980s and recorded an NFL-record 14 consecutive losing seasons before finishing 10-6 in 1997.

Worst draft pick: Bo Jackson

In the 1986 NFL Draft, the Bucs held the No. 1 overall pick and coveted Jackson, Auburn's dual-sport star in football and baseball.

As detailed in Jeff Pearlman's 2022 Jackson biography, the Bucs sunk their opportunity at having Jackson play for them after team executives flew him to Tampa Bay on a team plane during Auburn's college baseball season — a violation of NCAA rules. Subsequently, Jackson was declared ineligible by the NCAA despite the team giving him assurances beforehand that he would be able to finish his college baseball career.

After getting off on the wrong foot with Jackson, Tampa Bay could have drafted another player or traded the No. 1 overall pick to accumulate assets. But the organization drafted him anyway. 

In the 1986 MLB Draft, the Royals selected Jackson in the fourth round and signed him despite a much more lucrative offer from the Bucs. In 1987, Jackson re-declared for the NFL draft and was selected in the seventh round by the Raiders, with whom he played four seasons.

Worst free-agent signing: WR Alvin Harper

Harper was a great second option behind Michael Irvin in Dallas during the 1990s, so Tampa Bay figured he could be a star for the Bucs. In the 1995 offseason, Tampa Bay signed Harper to a four-year, $10 million contract — the most lucrative free-agent contract handed out that offseason. 

The previous year with the Cowboys, Harper had 33 receptions for 821 yards, a remarkable 24.9 yards per reception. He failed to match those heights in Tampa, but maybe he could have accomplished more if a trainer hadn't accidentally cut off a piece of his finger.

In his only two seasons with the Bucs, Harper had 65 receptions for 922 yards. He was out of the NFL after the 1999 season.

Worst fumble: 1982 NFL Draft 

Before the Bucs wasted the No. 1 overall pick on Jackson, the 1982 NFL Draft was their masterclass in dysfunction. Don Banks wrote a retrospective for Sports Illustrated on the infamous story of that year's draft, when the team mistakenly selected guard Sean Farrell 17th overall instead of their intended pick, defensive end Booker Reese. 

Per SI, the team's delegate at the draft wrote both names on a sheet of paper, but when executives told him who the selection was seconds before the pick was due, he misheard and told commissioner Pete Rozelle the wrong name.

"There was a lot of cussing," recalled team executive Ken Henrock.

Reese was still available in the next round, but without their own pick in the second, the Bucs traded their first-round selection in 1983 to land their guy. Reese played in 24 games over three seasons in Tampa Bay, recording two sacks before being traded to the Rams in 1984.

Farrell, meanwhile, played five solid seasons for the team before he expressed his desire "to get the hell out of Tampa Bay." He finished his career in Seattle in 1992.