NFL fans need no reminder of Tom Brady’s most recent Super Bowl triumph at the helm of the Tampa Buccaneers. The Bucs gave the Kansas City Chiefs a 31-9 beatdown in February. And “Wheel of Fortune” paid tribute to the victory with a football-themed puzzle.
They posted an image of the solved puzzle to their Instagram.
The caption reads, “#TampaBay, did you get this puzzle?” The post tagged the Buccaneers, Tom Brady, and Rob Gronkowski.
The category for the puzzle was “headline” and a few letters is all it took for many to guess the phrase.
“I knew that puzzle the moment HEADLINE was the category. You have to trust me on this one.,” wrote an Instagram user.
“Quicker than the contestant.,” another user commented, answering the “Wheel of Fortune” post’s question.
‘Wheel of Fortune’ NFL Players Week
Back in 2005, “Wheel of Fortune” invited 12 NFL players to the show and paired them with regular contestants. One of those players was longtime Tampa Bay Buccaneers fullback, Mike Alstott.
In a 2005 interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Alstott said, “It was sweet. It was cool. I got to meet Vanna [White] and Pat [Sajak] and all those people. It was a good setup. It was fun.”
“We didn’t do too well. We were matched up with regular contestants. They pretty much played the game, we just spun the wheel. We didn’t do too well, but it was exciting to be on one of the biggest game shows in the world,” he continued.
NFL Players Hosting Game Shows
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers just finished his stint as the guest host on “Jeopardy!”
But do you remember the time when the San Diego Chargers kicker took a turn as the daytime “Wheel of Fortune” host in the late 1980s?
Rolf Benirschke was the Chargers kicker for 10 years. After his NFL career, he became an advocate for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. And Merv Griffin happened to see him during an appearance on a Los Angeles morning show.
“I was transitioning out of football, I had ideas of what I wanted to do but I wasn’t exactly sure, so I was curious,” Rolf told ESPN.
In 1989, Pat Sajak left daytime “Wheel of Fortune” to focus on his short-lived talk show. Griffin needed to find a replacement, and he liked the cut of Benirschke’s jib. After a call and an audition, the former kicker got the job and spent a year in the role.
