Bucs win season opener over Vikings Tom Brew, The St.Petersburg Times, published 6 September 1981 Ever since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fumbled and stumbled through their last 1980 game last December, thousands of fans and an entire Buc team has been anxious to see which team was real, the 1979 defensive unit or the 1980, version that had its share of problems. Early returns Saturday night show that 1979 is the correct answer. Bend, but not break. Bend a little more, still no break. That's the way it was all night long for the Bucs who beat the Minnesota Vikings 21-13. "It seemed like every time we needed a big play we got it," said Buc defensive tackle David Logan, who knocked down three passes himself in the fourth quarter. "Once they got beyond the 50, we really came together as a unit. I think we played awful well." Viking quarterback Steve Dils, filling in for the injured star Tommy Kramer, performed admirably, but every time he needed a big play, something went wrong. Most of the time it wasn't his fault. A combination of rugged defense and sloppy catching did him in. All night long, Dils would sidestep one lineman, usually Lee Roy Selmon, who shadowed him a night, and then sidestep another just to get the pass off. Somehow he managed to stay a step - or at the very least a half step -ahead of the crowd. But in terms of generating points, Dils was coming up empty. The first half was fruitless, even though the Vi- kings managed to roll up 142 yards. But one bad play by the Vikes would squander any scoring opportunities. One first quarter drive, which had advanced 43 yards, ended when Dils mishandled the snap. Time to punt. Another drive stalled when Dils let someone else - running back Ted Brown - do the passing. Big mistake there. Brown threw a pass that floated through the air like a helium balloon and Tampa Bay's Neil Colzie picked it off. Dils managed some nice drives in the second half, too, which accounted for the two third quarter field goals. But still, big plays by the Bucs defense kept them out of the end zone. The Viiings finally made it into the end zone in the fourth quarter, but it wasn't without a superhuman effort. Twice the Bucs had the Vikings in fourth down situations while still trailing 14-6. On the first tough situation, Dils ran up the middle, the only running play on the 14-play drive. Then, with fourth and goal from the four, it looked like the Bucs had stopped them again when rookie linebacker Hugh Green deflected a pass into the end zone. But tight end Joe Senser kept his eyes on it and scored, making it, with the point after, 14-13. The Bucs defense had their back to the wall again again when the Tampa Bay offense stalled. In field goal range (the 26-yard line) with 35 seconds left, Dils went back to pass. Colzie, who already had one intercep- tion, stepped in front of Terry LeCount and raced the length of the field to score. ' The night of big plays was encouraging to the Buc defense. "We needed something like this to get us started," linebacker David Lewis said. “When you go from first to 23rd in defense, people are looking close at you. We had to prove a few things to ourselves that we could do it. I think we did” The statistics may not indicate it (27 Vikings first downs to 10 for the Bucs, 446 yards to 219), but it doesn’t matter.