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Tampa Bay has talked with the agent for Pro Bowl player from Miami.
By RICK STROUD
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 20, 2001
TAMPA -- Dolphins tackle Richmond Webb cleaned out his locker Thursday at the team's training complex in Davie, but he might not have to move far to find a new job.
The Bucs, recognizing Webb would not return to Miami after the Dolphins signed Buffalo tackle Marcus Spriggs to a two-year deal Thursday, telephoned the agent of the Pro Bowl player around sunrise.
Tampa Bay has targeted the 34-year-old Webb, an unrestricted free agent, to start at left tackle in 2001.
But because they have little room under the salary cap, they probably will wait until after the draft to attempt to sign Webb by releasing defensive end Chidi Ahanotu.
The Bucs' former franchise player is scheduled to count more than $5-million against the salary cap, but the team is trying to exhaust trade possibilities before releasing him, possibly before the draft Saturday.
Meanwhile, Webb likes the idea of playing for the Bucs.
"Richmond has always had a strong desire to play in Tampa Bay and I talked to him about it again today after they called," said Stephen Zucker, Webb's agent. "He's always been very excited about the Bucs."
Making the signing of Webb more critical is the possibility that Michigan tackle Jeff Backus, who had been projected Tampa Bay's likely choice with the 21st pick, might not slip past the Lions at No. 18.
Regardless of the Bucs' efforts to land an offensive tackle in the draft, they want to sign Webb, a 12th-year veteran, to protect free-agent quarterback Brad Johnson rather than entrust that job to a rookie.
Webb, who made seven Pro Bowls in a row until his streak of 118 consecutive games was broken in 1998 when he tore a left triceps muscle, is ready for the change.
If the Bucs sign Webb, he would line up next to 12-time Pro Bowl guard Randall McDaniel.
"They told us to keep in touch with them, not to do anything until they had a chance to talk," Zucker said of the Bucs.
Headline: Searching for wisdom on draft
Five years ago, predicting which players would fall to which teams in the NFL draft was a rare kind of speculation
Today, mock drafts are the belly button of online sports: Everybody has one. Baring such a midriff is a must for any sports site -- not just ESPN and CNNSI, but seemingly any fan with helmet logos and a few hours to kill.
It's another perk of the Internet, which is overflowing with scuttlebutt on shuttle times, personal workouts and Wonderlic scores. Just because you've never seen a player doesn't mean you can't rattle off strengths and weaknesses with relative authority.
The collective wisdom of these sites is doomed by in-breeding. The drafts borrow from one another, with hand-me-down conclusions built on hearsay and supposition. If general managers are scratching their heads as to who will go where after the first pick, how can "Seahawk Boy" have a clue who the Bucs' fourth-rounder will be? (Pencil in Notre Dame guard Mike Gandy, we read, if he's there at 117.)
If you accept that an intelligent general manager will do little to tip his hand before Saturday, a good mock draft simply shows the ability to slot players according to teams' smokescreens. Everybody is hopping into Kiper-baric chambers to play team owner and pre-emptively second-guess general managers. One page, "Miguel's NFL Draft Links" (nfldraftlinks.freeservers.com) has links to more than 80 mock drafts, and "Cleveland Browns: The Next Generation" (brownstng.com) has a "Mock Draft Muncher" that breaks down the aggregate results of 40 mock drafts.
By those numbers, the Bucs' pick at No. 21 is the second-closest consensus in the first round, behind the mortal lock of San Diego leading off with Michael Vick. Twenty-eight of the 40 drafts have Tampa Bay taking Michigan tackle Jeff Backus, with four others tabbing his linemate, Maurice Williams, for the pick.
Because ESPN runs the draft's TV coverage, ESPN.com is the best bet for following the real thing -- from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, you also can listen to live commentary at ESPNradio.com. For more analysis, try CNNSI.com, which has mock drafts from its NFL triumvirate of Peter King, Pat Kirwan and former Times writer Don Banks. Those three were unanimous on just five of 31 picks, but of course, one was the Bucs and Backus.
Before you think there's nothing gained by hours of poring over draft sites, ESPN.com has a "First Round Forecast" contest, inviting you to pick the top 15 players, and Sportingnews.com has a similar game. If you want a challenge, try filling yours out without another draft in front of you.
HEY, WE BEAT NORFOLK: Tampa ranked 31st (sixth-worst among major-league baseball markets) in a marketing study that measured cities' percentage of people who are Internet users and baseball fans. As part of a national survey of 200,000 people, 17 percent of people in Tampa identified themselves as Internet users who are "somewhat or very interested in professional baseball." That's just over half of the 32 percent boasted by Cleveland, which topped the list, and barely ahead of the national average of 16 percent.
If you're looking for cities to laugh at, Detroit finished last among major-league markets at 11 percent, and the lowest-ranked market was Charleston, W.Va.
TID-BYTES: CBSSportsline.com, second only to ESPN.com in traffic among media sites, will lay off as many as 90 employees this week to reduce its staff by about 15 percent. The site, which claims $103-million in cash reserves, lost $23.8-million in the first quarter of 2000, though its traffic is up 91 percent from a year ago. ... Quokka Sports, which produced NBC's 2000 Olympics site, the NCAA's finalfour.net and was to run next year's Winter Olympics site, closed up shop this week.
- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, send an e-mail to staff writer Greg Auman at aumanac1@aol.com.