When Bucs veteran defensive end Eric Curry, who Warren Sapp was not fond of, griped about doing pass rush drills on the third day of training camp in Father Dungy’s first year, Sapp knew the Bucs were headed in the right direction.

Throughout the weekend, Joe will bring snippets of the many, many, many stories Bucs great Warren Sapp shared Thursday with the Bucs pen and mic club about his career.

Soon-to-be Hall of Fame defensive tackle Warren Sapp makes no bones about the fact he thought he was much better than most Buccaneers when he arrived in Tampa Bay in 1995, even though Sapp was a rookie. And he was right.

Sapp still talks with disdain about Sam Wyche’s “Three ring circus,” as Sapp calls it, and last week he remembered what he thought was the turning point where the Bucs left their losing ways behind.

This took place on the third day of training camp under Father Dungy while Sapp and other defensive linemen were working on pass rush drills, a tactic most of the veterans loathed. Sapp, proving to be astute even at a young age, thought the Bucs needed such work.

“Eric Curry playing outside… there was some bad football being played. I go back to those days with Rod [Marinelli] and doing pass rush drills. On the third day, Curry looked at us, ‘We’re going to do this everyday?’ I was like, ‘Yes! I won’t have to look at his [arse] any more. He’s out of here.’ If you don’t want to do this? I mean, this is regular work in the summer.

“‘We’re going to pass rush everyday?’ Really? Last time I remember I ran one game and got a sack and you played 15 before you got a sack. Really? What the hell makes you so good that you don’t want to do this every day? So I couldn’t understand it.

“So we slowly understood the process of Tony [Dungy] and his coaching staff building something special.”