* How appropriate that Derrick Brooks, the third Buccaneer inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, made it on the first ballot. It’s no less noteworthy that, along with the late Lee Roy Selmon, Brooks became the second ex-Buc in the Hall who was also a Hall of Fame person. The third Buc Hall of Famer is Warren Sapp.
* The weather, those $4 million TV ads and Peyton Manning’s legacy weren’t the only subjects given a good airing before that Super Bowl mismatch. Another hot topic: the economic impact of this biggest of big games. One New York politician estimated that revelers would generate between $550 million and $600 million for the local economy. A lot of local lemmings nodded assent.
Critics called such numbers myopic, insane or fraudulent. Among the more experienced naysayers, our own Philip Porter, the outspoken economist from USF. Porter wasn’t buying any part of that half-billion-dollar, economic-impact projection. His estimate: “zero.”
“The people who come to these events,” he told the New York Times, “aren’t buying what the local economy sells.”
* For USF football, the Bulls will take all the harbingers of better times to come that can be mustered. Fortunately, the recent recruiting effort prompts legitimate optimism. The Bulls had the consensus best recruiting class in the American Athletic Conference.
But more to the point, this 28-member class features a strong local contingent. Nearly half the players are from the Tampa Bay area.
Those familiar with USF’s football fortunes over the years know it’s been a sore point that the Bulls haven’t taken advantage of their home-turf talent. Tampa Bay is a football hotbed.
Former coach Skip Holtz tried to make it happen, but failed. In his three recruiting classes, the Bulls signed a total of six Bay Area players. Head Coach Willie Taggart just signed a dozen last week.