Bucs can thank Bears for 2nd half David Whitley, The Tampa Tribune, published 21 September 1998 After all the construction, the hype and the ticket trauma, Tampa Bay fans found out Sunday just what $168.5 million will buy. A spiffy red stadium with not just one, but two home teams. The first team lost 15-0. The second team won 27-0, which means the Bucs would be 1-3 this morning if the NFL counted split-personality games. Fortunately for the local heroes, it doesn't. So everybody can look back on Sunday and savour it as the start of something grand. They also had better hope it was the end of something else entirely. Who were those guys in the first half? It was a debut only Bill Poe could have loved. Whoever the people in red were, they should send the NFL a thank-you note, for making the Bears come to town. Most other teams don't self-destruct with such a comforting frequency. It's hard to imagine Green Bay or Minnesota getting within 11 yards of the end zone three times and coming away with zero points. "I'd like to think we had something to do with that," John Lynch said. The defense did. It usually does with the Bucs. But the game still could have been 21-0, or 27-0 or some other deficit no Community Investment Tax could ever cover. Talk about an identity crisis. The Bucs would have been 0-3 and needed to enrol in the federal witness protection program to escape the wrath that was bubbling in the NFL's newest harbour. "It was like the H.M.S. Mutiny in the first half. It was a mutiny," Brad Culpepper said. "In the second half, it was like the Good Ship Lollipop." What we ended up with was the greatest comeback in Raymond James Stadium history. It was just like not-so-old times. Mike Alstott went into demolition mode. Dave Moore plucked a shooting star from the sky. Mike Shula became Bill Walsh. The worst of times turned into the best of times. Now we are left to ponder why the Bucs were suddenly able to find themselves on offense, and whether the sudden make-over will stick. One explanation is the Bucs simply wanted to pay homage to Tampa/Houlihan's Stadium. The only way to do that was to play like old times to ease the transition. "We were going to wear the old orange jerseys," Culpepper said. "But it lost by one vote." It wasn't really a question of fashion. It was just a matter of this year's Buc offense doing what last year's did. Run, run and run some more. Tampa Bay couldn't pound in the first two games. That happens when you get down three-plus scores. The Bucs barely escaped that fate Sunday, which allowed Alstott and Warrick Dunn to run like they did before they were abducted by aliens. The first two weeks of the season were bad enough to make you wonder. After 30 minutes Sunday, fans had to be wondering if they would ever see a running game again. "Anything we do that's successful is not surprising," Alstott said. "The surprising thing is why we haven't been doing it." Once they started doing it, it meant the Bucs could pass, which led to reverses, which led to touchdowns, which led to cannons firing, which may eventually lead to a class-action suit on behalf of an end zone full of deaf people. It was just what everybody wanted to hear Sunday. The next step is to keep it from fading away. So who are the real Bucs? The guys in red or the guys in orange? "The second half," Alstott said. "That was us." They sure hope so, because they can't play Chicago every week.