After a dismal 5-11 season in 2004, the Bucs restocked liberally via the draft, bringing in Cadillac Williams, Alex Smith and Dan Buenning, among others. The result was an almost stunning reversal, as they went 11-5 in 2005 and hosted a playoff game.
Obviously the Bucs don’t have the luxury of the No. 5 pick as they did last year (which yielded Williams), but they have a multitude of options as draft day nears.
The problem is that despite last season’s infusion of youth, the Bucs still have glaring deficiencies in all three phases of the game. So, if you were Bucs GM Bruce Allen, what would you do with your picks?
Let us know - bearing in mind, of course, that you won’t have to deal with the consequences… unlike Allen and Jon Gruden.
For the Bucs, the toughest part of losing Saturday (apart from the realization that it was to an inferior team) is in knowing how rarely postseason chances come along.
How likely are they to have another season in the near future where they win so many close games in near-miraculous fashion?
Look at this year’s NFC playoff field; of the six teams, only Seattle was playing at this time last season. With that sort of turnover, it’s very possible the Bucs could be at least as good next year and be done by Christmas.
And yes, of course, “turnover” is the key word for this day. Many will try to make Edell Shepherd a goat - and certainly, an NFL receiver should make an ordinary catch when open in the end zone. But the Bucs made this one far too easy for Washington.
You can argue that the Redskins would have taken more chances offensively without an early 14-0 lead, but it seems questionable at best that it would have mattered. Clinton Portis is hurt, and Santana Moss hasn’t gotten enough help from the other Washington receivers to be the dominant force he’s capable of becoming.
Years ago in the NFL, before free agency and the salary cap destroyed any sort of continuity a team could develop from one year to the next, young teams would have to take their painful lumps on the way to something greater (Chris Simms’ dad can tell him a few things about that).
The unfortunate - and, truth be known, unfair - part for Tampa Bay is that another chance as great as this one could be years away.
Predictably, the Bucs got a boost from their defense, followed by an excellent punt return from Mark Jones, to help crawl back within reach of the Redskins.
Still, you get the sense that any more points from Washington and the game will be out of hand.
Clinton Portis looks to be close to breaking one, and if he does, it will be desperation time for Tampa Bay.
And a note to Jon Gruden: maybe it’s just me, but it looks like the Skins are on to the screen pass.
Maybe the best news for the Bucs entering the second half is that they have to kick off.
That will certainly put their mosty reliable unit (the defense) on the field, just a big play away from getting back into this game.
Apart from two obvious mistakes, the Bucs have basically gone toe to toe with the Redskins. But, as they, that’s a lot like asking, “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
Regardless, the first five minutes of the third quarter should tell whether this is the final act for the 2005 Bucs.
Chris Simms said he was “pumped” coming into this game.
Perhaps on Thursday he was, or Friday. Maybe even Saturday morning.
But by the afternoon, he was clearly feeling the pressure of the approach of his first playoff start.
Ditto for Cadillac Williams, and their youthful mistakes are basically the sole reasons the Bucs find themselves behind by two touchdowns.
Are they finished? Probably not. Can they afford any more mistakes? Certainly not.
An early-second quarter score would probably help their nerves as much as it would anything else. The Redskins don’t look particularly fearsome on offense, but of course they may not have to.
If this is a 10-point or less game at halftime, it’ll be up for grabs.
Otherwise… well, no one expected this to be a playoff season, anyway. Right?
They’re the fashionable pick, the one on a five-game winning streak, with the explosive passing game and a power running game featuring one of the league’s most talented backs.
The Washington Redskins made the playoffs as a No. 6 seed, but to do so they had to beat all of their NFC East rivals while scoring an average of 33.6 points in those wins. They are the hottest team entering the playoffs, and the one team that the prognosticators see as perhaps the most dangerous in a wide-open NFC.
Which is why the Bucs are widely seen as a team that will make an early exit, despite hosting this first-round game and coming off an 11-5 season and NFC South title. Just like in 2002, when the Bucs were given little chance to make their way through the postseason and emerged as Super Bowl XXVII champions.
I, for one, don’t see it. Even though it’s way too premature to anoint this team as a shoo-in for the NFC championship, they should be able get past Washington and advance to next week’s showdown at Chicago.
While the Bucs defense will key on Portis, Redskins quarterback Mark Brunell is playing on a gimpy knee - good news for Simeon Rice, who is sure to tee off on a potential sitting-duck QB - and Tampa Bay’s big-play secondary will be able to keep Redskins star receiver Santana Moss in check.
Chris Simms has shown poise beyond his experience, and backed by a running game led by Cadillac Williams, Coach Jon Gruden is sure to devise a game plan that will eliminate risk, while opening up opportunities downfield for Simms and Joey Galloway.
Expect Simms and Galloway to hook up on at least one big play against an ailing Redskins secondary - unlike Brunell-Moss, who will find few opportunities against Ronde Barber, Brian Kelly and Co. And as he’s done so often in the season’s final few games, Gruden will turn to Williams in the second half to close it out.
The Bucs have to neutralize Portis, which they will. Expect no more than 100 yards, and a 17-13 Bucs victory.
It was one the Bucs had to have to assure a home playoff game (read: a chance to play past next weekend). Yet, given even that situation, why would this game have been any different than the previous 15?
Maybe the Bucs just play to the level of their competition - well, at least when they’re not in Boston in December. Maybe the NFL’s cherished “P” word, parity, is firmly in effect. Perhaps the Bucs are just marginally better than most teams they play.
Playoff-bound Panthers or Bears? Mediocre Dolphins or Falcons? How about the horrendous 49ers or Lions? Doesn’t matter who lines up on the other side: the Bucs always make it intriguing in a fingers-meet-chalkboard sort of way.
A 3-12 New Orleans, having played on the road all season, should have had no business keeping this game close when it meant so much to Tampa Bay. Observers always throw out disclaimers when describing the Saints - “talented”, “dangerous”, “underachieving”, etc. Truth is, they’re a bad team playing without its starting quarterback, its running back, even its city.
But there they were, at midfield well into the fourth quarter, a solid chance to tie the Bucs. And without Dewayne White’s heroics, the game might well have been a 74-minute marathon just like the week before. Granted, Todd Bouman probably didn’t have the home defense shaking in its cleats, but he did more than enough to get his team into that situation.
Still, to paraphrase Simeon Rice, the Bucs are what they are. They continue to break in a quarterback, and they keep relying on a rookie runner to deflate the clock late in games when they’ve already done just enough to win. They’re not pretty (though they have their moments when the lighting is just right), they’re an odd amalgam of young and old, and after getting husked by New England they have to be wondering if they belong in the postseason at all.
But they’ve won more than twice as often as they’ve lost, and their visitors next week will certainly approach the assignment with hesitation.
That’s exactly what the Bucs have avoided this season, which is why it’s not over yet.
It was over. And over again.
Then, finally, it was OVER over.
Apparently a lot of fans on hand missed the last two endings, bolting for the exits as soon as Edell Shepherd dropped the overtime kickoff before touching a soul. Unfortunate for them, of course, but even moreso for the Falcons, who experienced sudden death in its cruelest form - their playoff hopes vanishing on Christmas Eve, of all days.
On the other side, perhaps it was only fitting that the Bucs would get such a monumental gift on this day (coupled, of course, with Carolina losing at home). Certainly, Tampa Bay did enough over the span of five quarters to earn this crucial win; it also did more than enough to lose.
Suddenly, a team picked by virtually no one to even compete for a playoff bid could be a week away from a division title and even a first-round bye.
The obvious question becomes: How?
As with any successful team situation, there is a multitude of factors working for the Bucs this year - a resurgent defense, a rejuvenated 34-year-old breakaway receiver, a livewire rookie running back. Without any of these, that 10-5 record could be turned around completely.
But as Saturday’s second half and overtime showed, there’s no greater factor than reason No. 2.
His name is Chris Simms. And if Brian Griese is confused with Wally Pipp by locals in the near future, the cheerful, lanky blonde Texas Ex will be the reason why.
Many people wrote off the Bucs’ quick start after Griese was lost for the season, citing the (lack of) early-season competition and the questioned durability of Cadillac Williams. What couldn’t have been foreseen at that time was how Simms would grow into his job as leader of the offense.
Just as he did against Washington and Carolina, he made all the right decisions against the Falcons, making the plays that were there and keeping the offensive ship steady in crucial situations.
Simms is too young to be a team leader; he’s wise enough to know that. He’s too old now to claim inexperience; he’s fearless enough not to want to.
And when he’s surrounded by quality talent like this year, Simms is enough, period.
So, too, may be the Bucs.
Apologists will be quick to point out that the Bucs were finishing a three-game road trip Saturday, that finishing such a task undefeated is simply not realistic in the NFL.
There is truth to that, just as there is to the thoroughness of the whipping New England applied to them. Both teams left the field at 9-5, but there would be NO truth in saying that they’re comparable in any other sense at this point.
A shockingly decisive win in Carolina left no doubt in the minds of most that the Bucs were destined for the playoffs. That should still hold true, even after Saturday’s debacle. When the hottest team in their conference is the notoriously-fickle Vikings, the rear-view should hardly be the first thing on their minds.
Just as importantly, the remaining schedule (home games against Atlanta and New Orleans) is more than conducive to reaching the “tournament” Jon Gruden so often refers to.
The question is: What then?
Will they fold as horrendously as they did against the Patriots? Will they be as thoroughly inept in some NFC venue as they were in the den of the defending champions?
Clearly, New England senses that the time to push ahead is now; that’s how championship teams operate. Maybe they would have applied the same pasting to anyone, and the Bucs were simply in the wrong place at the right time.
But if they don’t treat this game as a blueprint for how to operate from this point forward, the postseason will prove to be anything BUT their place.
Most Bucs discussions last week seemed to start with “Well, after the Carolina game...”, the clear implication being that despite yet another impending loss to the Panthers, the Bucs could still think about their place in the playoff picture.
And, to be sure, there was a systematic dismantling in Charlotte Sunday, just as many predicted. But the fact that it was the Bucs doing the wrecking means that the postseason has gone from a decent possibility to a virtual certainty for them.
Tampa Bay has won nine games (five on the road) and is a very solid bet to win 11. Whether that’s good enough to claim the NFC South title or not, it would be a lock for the playoffs and probably even a first-round home game.
That’s a feeling like old times for the Bucs, which is only logical considering the way they’ve gotten to this point is exactly how they’ve done it before. Just like last week (albeit against lesser competition in the Saints in that case), the Bucs stuck with a basic offense Sunday centered around ball control. In contrast to the first meeting with Carolina, they didn’t turn the ball over, which let the season’s true MVP, the defense, carry the day.
The Panthers’ Steve Smith, considered by some a league MVP candidate earlier in the year, was irrelevant but for one long scoring catch. DeShaun Foster and Stephen Davis, at times the best running back tandem in football, will feel every one of their yards gained this week. Gritty Jake Delhomme often seemed overmatched against the Bucs’ often-shifting schemes, and even Carolina’s loyal fans were restless by halftime.
It’s the Bucs’ biggest win since January in San Diego, but only if they maintain the momentum of these last two weeks. That won’t be easy in the Arctic-like cold of New England against a bunch that knows a bit about meaningful games - but their visitors are getting that way pretty quickly, too.
Say this for the Bucs: they can dance to any beat.
They can win 36-35; they can win 19-3. This type versatility is crucial when moving with a partner as unpredictable as New Orleans. Would anyone have been truly surprised if 31 points wouldn’t have been enough to win this game? The Saints, for all the turmoil they’ve endured in 2005, remain potent offensively.
This didn’t seem to faze Tampa Bay, which again shut down an opponent’s attack with the usual checklist: shut down the running game, hang on to the ball and force their quarterback to beat you.
Fortunately for the Bucs, Aaron Brooks continues to write checks his arm can’t cash (this week’s beneficiary: Ronde Barber), and New Orleans played perfectly into the gameplan.
People will continue to wonder why Michael Clayton has disappeared from the offensive radar, and how Cadillac Williams can regain the form he showed early in the seaason (the latter question, by the way, is easy to answer: just schedule the Vikings, Packers and Bills again). The reality is that both Clayton and Williams continue to draw attention from defenses, and Joey Galloway has forged a career year out of the consequences.
A trip to Carolina next week, needless to say, will tell much more about the prospects of the Bucs. But the formula used to great success against the Saints on Sunday is the same one used by teams that play deep into January.
And at 8-4, in a feeble NFC, Tampa Bay could end up one of them.
It looked like the old Bucs out there Sunday. Grind it out, wear the opponent down, punctuate the whole affair with decisive plays on defense.
Oh, wait. That was the other team doing that.
Well, anyway, it was certainly a traditional-type Tampa Bay game against Chicago at Raymond James, only they must have switched uniforms. The Bears played it safe, relying on a world-class defense and a quarterback instructed not to lose games rather than win them by himself.
The Bucs, meanwhile, seemed willing to put the outcome in Chris Simms’ hands, and while he can’t be blamed for the loss, one wonders if Jon Gruden would like a few of those plays wasted on incompletions back.
What he CERTAINLY would like back, are the kind words he showered upon Matt Bryant while contrasting him to the ever-erratic Martin Gramatica. Bryant will, naturally, get most of the abuse (and there will be plenty) from fans who felt 8-3 was a given coming into the weekend, and it’s true he’s part of an eccentric niche market of professionals paid very well for a unique skill.
But mistakes happen. Bryant has won games for the Bucs before and, given the chance, he’ll almost certainly do so again.
Perhaps the biggest mistake on the day, though, was the Bucs trying to become the un-Bucs. Leaving Simms to fend off the best defensive ends in football, rather than sticking to a running game that was reasonably effective, was a punt (after punt) waiting to happen. As good as Joey Galloway has been for Simms (and the Bucs), this is still a team built on ball control and defensive bullies.
That formula worked well again Sunday - just for someone else.
The Bucs defense has taken a lot of pride in recent years in their ability to contain Atlanta’s Michael Vick. They probably won’t be as boastful after Sunday’s effort, but the way the team managed to become a remarkable 7-3 probably says more about where the it’s going than where it’s been.
Tampa Bay, winning with offense? It sounds bizarre, but so does the notion of the Bucs driving the length of the field against Atlanta’s defense to win on the road.
But that’s what happened, the future of the Bucs on full display in the Georgia Dome. Chris Simms continues to improve and show confidence in crucial situations, and if Cadillac Williams is back to being Cadillac full-time, these two could grow old together.
Old, actually, is how the Bucs defense looked after the first quarter, trying to contain Vick and his largely anonymous receivers. Jon Gruden can’t be proud of the 304 passing yards his secondary surrendered, but you can’t blame him if thoughts of his young backfield (and being 7-3) keep him smirking.
But that smirk won’t be that of one who got away with something. Even if the Falcons’ desultory showing against Green Bay last week caught attention league-wide for its sloppiness, it’s doubtful anyone can say the Bucs didn’t deserve this victory.
Many will say the Bucs can’t count on winning games the way they did against the Redskins. The league’s top-ranked defense giving up 35 points? The running game once again all but forsaken? A recipe for disaster, they’ll say.
They’ll be right.
But who cares? The Bucs nonetheless found a way to beat a quality opponent for perhaps the first time this season. Despite their many problems, they’re 6-3 and squarely in the NFC playoff picture (Atlanta losing to Green Bay didn’t hurt, either).
Critics will continue to dismiss Chris Simms’ standing as a legitimate NFL quarterback, despite his poise and productivity against a ferocious Washington defense. They may be right about that, too, but if they think an average pro quarterback could have orchestrated a fourth-quarter rally like this one, they’re just looking for things to complain about.
Yes, it’s disturbing that the normally solid Bucs defense seemed clueless as to how to contain Clinton Portis (or Mark Brunell, for that matter), but for the first time in years - 2000 against St. Louis, perhaps - the offense was forced to deliver repeatedly, and did exactly that.
The Alstott chorus will be deafening this week, that ever-growing faction of fans who believes that no Bucs game can end with success without #40 flattening opposing linebackers and safeties. It will be more than a bit annoying to the ears of dink-and-dunk Jon Gruden, but a 6-3 record will sound symphonic to everyone.
The Bucs were warned that the competition was about to get a lot tougher.
For the record, it happened right about 1:05 p.m. on Sunday.
The euphoria and 2002-here-we-go-again bravado created by the Bucs’ 4-0 start have slowly been replaced by the realities of a very average team trying to prove its relevance against superior competition in its own division.
The Bucs had a chance to validate themselves against one of the NFC’s purebreds, the Panthers, but instead were dominated in every phase of the game. In their own house.
Carolina absorbed the energy of a crowd desperate to see proof that these teams had more in common than 5-2 records, took the opening kick and had a field goal on the board before FOX’s Troy Aikman could even remind anyone once more of his glory days in Dallas.
Yet again, one glimmer of hope for the Bucs was provided by Joey Galloway, scoring on a deep throw in the first half when those in attendance hadn’t yet given much thought to how else they might spend their Sunday afternoons.
Clearly, the possibilities became more and more alluring to them as the outcome became more and more unavoidable.
The Bucs knew what they were up against: Steve Smith came in as the hottest receiver in the NFL, and stayed that way. Carolina’s running game was doing more than enough to keep Smith effective, and did so again. The Panther defense was built on toughness and turnovers, and used both to turn this supposed divisional “showdown” into little more than a novelty.
Whether Chris Simms is the answer for Tampa Bay or not doesn’t seem to matter anymore. The problem is that there may be too many questions in the first place.
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