Battle of the Bays

Comparing the Bucs, circa 2002 vs. 1999

The greatest season in Tampa Bay Buccaneers' history came in 1999, when the team made it to the NFC championship game and came one booth-mandated reversed call away from beating the Super Bowl champion Rams.

It was an old-fashioned team with serious running by Mike Alstott and Warrick Dunn, an indifferent passing attack behind Trent Dilfer, who was replaced by Shaun King at just about this stage of the season -- the whole thing keyed by a crushing, stifling defense.

Then came a rather blah period for two years. Mike Shula, the offensive coordinator who had orchestrated that heavy ground attack, was replaced by Les Steckel in an effort to pump some life into the passing game. Steckel gave way to Clyde Christensen a year later. The team lost its identity. The defense finally cracked under the burden of an offense that couldn't pull its weight.

Now the Bucs are alive again, tied, at 8-2, with Green Bay for best record in the NFL. The defense, which retains its three Pro Bowl stars, John Lynch, Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp, has been compared to that of '99. The offense, with only two players remaining from '99 -- Alstott, a sometime starter, and Karl Williams, the fourth receiver -- is in the hands of head coach Jon Gruden. It's interesting to compare, statistically, Tampa Bay of 1999 with the 2002 Bucs, at this stage of the season. So interesting that I've created a chart in its honor.

Right now the Bucs are challenging Green Bay as a Super Bowl front-runner. How good are they, compared to the Bucs of '99, who almost made it? Better in some areas, worse in others.

The offense is still missing some parts. The line is OK but nothing special. Gruden has a nasty way of finding the weak sister in the opponent's lineup and going after it. Against Carolina last weekend, for instance, he zeroed in on middle linebacker Will Witherspoon, filling in for the injured Dan Morgan, and went to work on him.

Johnson is a functional NFL quarterback with an injury history. He can work an offense but there's little sparkle to his game, and when he's flushed out of the pocket he's inaccurate and none too mobile. Dilfer was mistake-prone, and when the rookie, King, took over for him the team seemed to respond. Then the sun set on King and he returned to the bench, where he now languishes.

No one on the '99 receiving corps could match Keyshawn Johnson, who's performing at Pro Bowl level. This team lacks overall speed, but Keyshawn can catch the occasional deep ball on sheer muscle. In the running game, well, Alstott is still Alstott, although he's not as fashionable as he once was, but Pittman is a far cry from the multi-talented Dunn.

The same three stars -- Lynch, Sapp and Brooks -- still lead the defense, joined by right corner Ronde Barber, who was a young, third-year pro in '99 but now can stake a claim as pretty near the best in the business. Teams tend to stay away from him, but the left corner, Brian Kelly, has held up well under the barrage. Lynch, at 29, is close to what he was three years ago; Brooks, who still makes a lot of big plays, is not the dynamo he was then, when he was the real key to that '99 defense and the best space linebacker in the game. Multiple injuries killed his 2001 season and severely hurt the overall defense, but he seems OK now. Sapp is having a better year than he did when he enjoyed his third Pro Bowl season back in '99. His weight is down. He's more serious about playing the run. He has the same burst off the ball, but he can sustain it longer now. He doesn't take the occasional play off, as he used to. Having Simeon Rice, a better second-sacker than the Bucs had in '99, at the right end certainly helps.

The punting game, if you want to get picky, is worse. Tom Tupa washed out with the Jets last season, and he'll hit the frequent low liner that sets up the return. Punting, going in, he has trouble keeping the ball out of the end zone.

So how do the Bucs compare, overall, with the 1999 vintage? Pretty well. They're certainly better suited to today's pass-happy game, although you still get a feeling that their offense will have trouble if it has to come from behind. Are they the best in the NFL? Well, let's see what happens against Green Bay Sunday -- and then again later on in Lambeau.

Oakland had the ball on New England's 8-yard line last Sunday night with 1:38 left in the half. The Patriots had all their time outs. Why didn't they call any? This is an area of the game that drives me nuts. Clock butchery. I mean, it's a given that the Raiders are going to score, whether it's seven or three points, and you know you're going to get the ball back, so why not give yourself enough time to get something going? Beats me, except that every week I see this phenomenon.

It happens to every coach, even the savvy ones, such as Steve Mariucci of the 49ers. Same deal, against the Chargers last week, only this time it was at the end of regulation time, when the Chargers were at the San Francisco 8, and the Niners could have given themselves enough time to move down the field, but they didn't call a time out, and when they finally got the ball, only 25 seconds remained.

I've said it a million times. Teams hire a capologist to work the salary cap, they should also hire a clockologist to stay on the sidelines and be responsible for the timeouts during a game, since the coaches often lose track.

As far as overall game-day butchery, though, no one can match the Bears. Make that butchery in crunch time. On Nov. 3, when they lost to the Eagles by six, there was 3:37 showing on the clock when they got the ball back on their own 25, a lifetime. And that's the way their offense handled it. Three plays gained them a first down in Eagles territory but took the clock down to the two-minute warning. Three plays! They moved into and out of the huddle and up to the line like snails. Two plays later they were at the Philly 29, when they took their first timeout -- with 1:15 left. Five plays had taken 2:25. The game ended for them with three incompletes and a sack.

The following week they lost to the Patriots, when they sat on an 11-point lead, late in the fourth quarter, and blew it when New England made a 14-point run at them. Here is what I think was the crucial point -- the Bears had a second-and-one on their own 36 with 2:27 left and the Patriots, down by five, used their timeouts. New England was bunching everything inside and run-blitzing, coming over the top. You just don't gain yardage against that. So, what did the Bears do? The predictable, tried and true, old-line, clunky, NFL Neanderthal thinking. They ran the ball twice, into the teeth of that defense, losing a little each time. Then they had to punt into a stiff wind, and the Patriots got a runback and put the game away.

One little two-yard swing pass against that clustered defense and it's a slam dunk. No drama, no last-second heroics by Tom Brady; it's the ballgame. But it simply goes against a game plan that must have been written by Walter Camp. Are there coaches who throw in situations like that? Certainly. Mike Shanahan does, Dan Reeves does, Mariucci does, and so does Jim Fassel when he feels adventurous. But not many of them do it.

Once I covered a Jets-Bills game in the 1970s, and the situation was similar: Buffalo QB Joe Ferguson threw a seven-yard hitch pass while the Bills were milking the clock and ended the game. In the locker room I sought him out.

"Whose call?" I asked.

"Bench call," he said, and I started laughing.

"No way in the world Chuck Knox is going to make that call," I said.

"OK, OK," he said, looking around to see if anyone was listening. "I called it, but please don't write it."

All he had done was won the game. And he felt like a criminal.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z's Mailbag, click here.

 

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