| No. 74 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position | Offensive tackle | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born | (1965-02-24)February 24, 1965 (age 60) Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) | ||||||||
| Weight | 292 lb (132 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school | Sauk Prairie (Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin) | ||||||||
| College | Wisconsin (1984–1987) | ||||||||
| NFL draft | 1988: 1st round, 4th overall pick | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| Awards and highlights | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Paul Blake Gruber (born February 24, 1965) is an American former professionalfootball player who was anoffensive tackle for theTampa Bay Buccaneers in theNational Football League (NFL). He playedcollege football for theWisconsin Badgers. He was selected by the Buccaneers with the fourth overall pick in the1988 NFL draft.[1]
Gruber spent his entire NFL career with theTampa Bay Buccaneers from 1988 to 1999. He never missed a snap in his first five years in the league. Over his 12-year career he appeared in 183 games,starting all of them, which was a Buccaneers record untilDerrick Brooks broke it in 2007.
For most of his career, Gruber was one of the few marquee players on a bad team; indeed, his early years were spent on some of the worst teams in Buccaneers history.[2] The Buccaneers had losing records in each of his first nine seasons, including the last seven years of an NFL-record streak of 12-consecutive 10-loss seasons.
He missed the last part of the 1999 season, in which the Buccaneers advanced all the way to the NFC Championship Game, due to a broken leg. The injury was slow to heal in the offseason, which was a factor in his decision to retire during the summer of 2000.[3]
On June 6, 2012, it was announced that Paul Gruber would be the latest member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneer Ring of Honor. Gruber joined Hall of FamerLee Roy Selmon, former coachJohn McKay and tight endJimmie Giles as the fourth inductee into the Ring of Honor, established in 2009.