Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Lavonte David has witnessed just one winning season and has yet to make the playoffs during his eight-year NFL career.
David is hoping Tom Brady will help change the Buccaneers fortunes.
“It’s very exciting, man. Very exciting,” David told Sirius XM NFL Radio. “We’ve always been on the brink of getting there and having a couple mistakes here and there that get us from not being in the playoffs or being able to compete in the Super Bowl. We can have a guy who can erase all that, come in and erase all that and know what it takes to get there. Having him at the helm and being a leader, one of the leaders of our football team, hopefully he can put us over that hump and get us there, find a way to get us to the big dance that we all want.”
The best record the Buccaneers have posted in David’s tenure with the team is a 9-7 mark in 2016 that saw them lose out on a playoff spot via a common games tiebreaker with the Detroit Lions. Tampa Bay has finished last in the NFC South in six of David’s eight years with the team.
While David has become close with now former Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston over his five years with the team, David said it’s now about moving forward with Brady and seeing if he can take the team to the postseason, or better, for the first time since 2007.
“I’ve got tremendous amounts of respect for Jameis,” David said. “The athlete that he is, the person that I’ve seen him become. We’ve got a personal, private relationship that I cherish and I consider him as a friend of mine so, you know, just seeing him go is tough but I guess that’s just a part of the business and stuff that you’ve got to handle. Now we’ve got to move on and put that thing behind us and go ahead and embrace Tom Brady with open arms, man. Obviously, we’re excited to have him. I’m excited to have him in the locker room bringing that winning pedigree, that winning attitude to the locker room because as you all know we definitely need it.”