This trip started with ownership change

Former Bucs quarterback Doug Williams led the team to the NFC Championship Game in 1979 but didn't earn a Super Bowl ring until eight years later when he led the Washington Redskins to victory in San Diego. The Grambling football coach took time out of a busy week of recruiting to talk about his old team reaching the NFL's biggest game, 15 years after he played in the same stadium.

I think it's a great thing to see Tampa Bay in the Super Bowl, just because of everything they've gone through. The history of the Buccaneers, from 0-26 at the start to this point, that's a whole lot of history behind them. Now, the future is in front of them.

You can compare this team to the '79 team, but what a lot of people don't understand about that '79 team is that things were so much different. This year's team had a lot to work with from the start, thanks to the Glazers and Rich McKay. The ownership and the management, they're willing to pay to bring in the right kind of players. If we had those kind of players, we might have gotten to a championship. Back then it was, "Let's squeeze a penny. Let me save as much as I can, so I can make as much as I can." You can see the difference now, and it's an amazing difference.

The whole objective of playing football, at any level, is to win a championship. And to be at the highest level and play for a championship, it's something that not everybody gets a chance to do. I saw the Bucs once this year, in New Orleans, and the Saints beat them, and it's a reminder that every team in the league gets paid to play.

This Bucs team has everything it takes to win. They've proven it in the regular season. They proved it in the playoffs, they proved it in the cold weather. They have as good a chance to win as they could ask for.

It goes back to management. What they gave up to get Jon Gruden, a lot of people said they thought it was a stiff price to pay. Now, he has them in the Super Bowl, and it doesn't seem to be a bad price. I've known Jon Gruden for a long time. He used to stand beside me on the sidelines while I warmed up. He'd throw the ball and Rich McKay would catch the ball, back and forth. You talk about being in the right place; they were just kids, but now you look at them and you have a coach and a general manager in the Super Bowl.

This is a great thing, and it's long overdue, for the players and the team, but most of all for the city as a whole. And it's all because this team has owners who will put their money where their mouth is, where the money should be.