Professor

excerpt:


Time and again last winter, Mike Alstott’s day ended the same way. Another long practice in the lingering Florida heat, another slow walk off the One Buccaneer Place practice field into the weight room, another powwow with reporters by the back door.

Another set of the same questions.

With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fighting for a playoff spot, then a division title, then a chance to move on in the postseason tournament, it seemed like every afternoon was a potential ending for Alstott, the 10th-year veteran fullback. In some circles, it was all but assumed that Alstott would retire at the end of his resurgent 2005 season, happy to have gone out on a strong note but needing nothing more to prove.

We paraphrase Alstott’s basic answer to the repeated line of questioning during his own personal Groundhog Day: ‘I haven’t decided anything.’ That was read as: ‘Yes, I’m retiring, but I don’t want to talk about it right now.’

As it turns out, that was a misread, if an understandable and commonly shared one. The basic point lost in the assumption that Alstott was winding down his career was this: He wasn’t done with football.

Football, as Alstott recently told the NFL Network in a “Walk and Talk” interview filmed on that same One Buc backyard, is “in his blood.” Still. He insists he has lost none of his “passion and love” for the game, or for the Buccaneers.

http://www.buccaneers.com/news/newsd...px?newsid=5200

ABuccsFan

One of my all time favorite Buccaneer players of all time. So misunderstood by so many fans.

gruntbygod

Another sign Im getting old, Mike Alstott has been in the NFL for ten years, and I remember when they drafted him. Hell I remember tellin people Errict Rhett was gonna be a star when the Bucs drafted him

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ABuccsFan

Rhett maybe could have, but greed got in the way.

Mike led the team in receptions his rookie year. Not a bad feat for a fullback. Too many people want to consider Mike a horrible tailback, instead of what he really is......fullback so great, that when his team needed him to, he could act as a tailback. I'm not sure how many of the greatest fullbacks in the history of the game could have been used as an everydown back if their tailback was injured. I've seen a stat comparison between Czsonka and Allstott, and they're not all that far appart. Some categories, Mike leads Larry.

Professor

I wanted him to retire as I have caddy in a keeper league. LOL

MickeyG

You have made that very clear several times

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Professor

it just gets my goat, thanks hawk, i mean mick, LOL

Scurvy

Guys like Alstott are one of the reasons we all love this game, or any game for that matter. Sure, the Chad Johnsons of the sportsworld are fun to watch for their hijinks as well as their gameplay, but ya gotta love the man that comes to work early every gameday (Mike's there first, usually 4 hrs before kick-off), and accepts whatever his role is, for the love of playing the game. Playing a game. Could he be used more? Maybe. Some would prefer he retire and the team move on. All I can say, is when the man gets his touches it usually ends up in positive yards. He's still fun to watch. RAYJAY blew up on the last play of that first Skins game last year. We all love those moments. Mike's been that moment his entire career, pretty much. When he's done, he'll be missed....but he'll be remembered. The business of it all aside, ya gotta love the guy that just wants to play.

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