Buccaneers Legendary QB is up for Pro Football Hall of Fame

One of the greatest and most influential Tampa Bay Buccaneers in history is up for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Word got out Wednesday that Doug Williams was a Hall of Fame finalist in the contributors category. 

The contributors category recognizes people who made contributions to football in ways that went beyond playing or coaching, and Williams certainly falls into that category. 

Buccaneers fans who don’t know about Williams, with all due respect, don’t know their history. Williams came to the Bucs in 1978 after a standout career for legendary coach Eddie Robinson at Grambling State.

The Bucs had high hopes for Williams, drafting him with the 17th overall pick in 1978. Unfortunately for Williams, he came into a franchise that, to that point, probably would have struggled to beat Grambling State.

Tampa came into a league as an expansion franchise in 1976 and promptly went 0-14. The Bucs won a game the next season and even won another one, but lost the other 12.

By the end of the 1979 season, the Bucs were a playoff team, and Williams was a big reason. Although Williams’ numbers from that season hardly look pretty (18 touchdowns, 24 interceptions, 41.8 completion percentage), it was the best QB season in Bucs history to that point.

Williams improved statistically over his next three seasons, eclipsing 3,000 yards in 1980 and 1981 and throwing more touchdowns than interceptions in each campaign.

Tampa won another division title in 1981, but the strike-shortened ‘82 campaign would prove to be Williams’ last in Tampa, and the divorce wasn’t pretty.

Despite Tampa making the playoffs three times with Williams as the starter, he was the lowest paid QB in the game, making just over $120,000 a year.

Williams asked Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse for a raise to $600,000, which was still below the league average, and Culverhouse wouldn’t do it, only offering him $400,000.

In his 1990 autobiography “Quarterblack: Shattering the NFL Myth,” Williams stated that Culverhouse paid him like a “slave.”

After the Bucs, Williams left the NFL for a bit, but kept playing pro football.

Williams spent the 1984 and 1985 seasons with the Oklahoma/Arizona Outlaws.

After that, he returned to the NFL, and his finest hour wasn’t far away. 

Williams started the 1987 season as the Washington Redskins’ backup, but come playoff time, coach Joe Gibbs chose him as the starter.

It ended up working out. Williams became the first Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, and the only one to do it until Seattle Seahawks’ QB Russell Wilson accomplished that feat in 2014 (Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts have since followed suit). 

Williams patched things up with the Bucs enough to return to the organization, now owned by the Glazer Family, in 2004 as a personnel executive, and stayed until 2010.

Despite his history with the Bucs, it’s hard to argue that Williams isn’t most closely associated with the Washington Redskins/Commanders.

He came back to Washington in 2014 as a personnel executive and has been there ever since.

The final Hall of Fame list of candidates will consist of one contributor, one coach and 13 players, and the class will be announced in early 2027.

The other nominees are New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, late Chicago Bears owner Virginia McCaskey, longtime player, scout and personnel executive John Wooten and former Canton Bulldogs owner Ralph Hay.