Sapp call is quits

More than 30 hours remained before the new year, but the cork to the rose-colored bottle of champagne at Warren Sapp's locker had been popped.The Oakland Raiders had lost 30-17, so there definitely was no celebration of the game or the 4-12 season just completed.Perhaps it was the celebration of a 13-year career that is likely to eventually land Sapp in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sapp told teammates before Sunday's finale that the 2007 season was his last. He stuck to his word by informing the team Thursday he will retire.Sapp retires with 96 1/2 sacks, second to John Randle (137 1/2) among defensive tackles in league history.Sapp spent his last four seasons with the Raiders after establishing himself among the game's elite at his position in nine seasons with Tampa Bay, highlighted by a victory in Super Bowl XXXVII over Oakland.In his first season with the Raiders, Sapp played out of position as a defensive end as defensive coordinator Rob Ryan tried to install a 3-4 scheme but played the last three seasons at the spot at which he became a star.Sapp was the centerpiece of the defensive line in Tampa and its famed "Tampa-2" or cover-2 scheme that emphasized dominance from the front four after the Buccaneers selected him in the first round of the 1995 NFL draft from Miami.Sapp was named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1999 and was selected to the NFC Pro Bowl team from 1997 to 2003. He had four seasons with at least 10 sacks, the last coming in 2006 when he led defensive tackles with 10. Sapp, who had a career-high 16 1/2 sacks in 2000, helped popularize the term "three-technique" for a defensive tackle who plays on the outside shoulder of the guard or in the "three" gap."If you were going to pick a football team and play on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday or whenever, and it came time for you to pick your three-technique, you were taking me with you," Sapp told MediaNews on Thursday. "That's all I ever wanted from this game."Sapp's talkative ways were a focus during his days chasing Brett Favre when the Bucs battled Green Bay in the old NFC Central.Those ways also got him into trouble. He was fined $75,000 last week for verbal abuse and making physical contact with an official last month in Jacksonville.Never one to shy from attention, Sapp was chided by the NFL in the past for skipping through opposing players while they stretched.Sapp credited his former line coach Rod Marinelli, now Detroit's head coach, for challenging him to become a better player and always praised Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy for what he taught him at Tampa Bay.Sapp's career came full circle in 2007 when he played for Lane Kiffin, the son of his defensive coordinator at Tampa Bay, Monte Kiffin. Sapp finished the season with 50 tackles, two sacks and two forced fumbles in Kiffin's first season with Oakland."Warren and I hit it off pretty good right away," Kiffin said. "And he liked what he saw in the team meetings. He liked what we talked about, the practice tempo, a bunch of things he'd been disappointed in before, and he really got behind us and what we were doing. It was a good experience."(Contact Jason Jones at jejones@sacbee.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)