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Roger Mills, The St.Petersburg Times, published 27 September 1999
Usually, there are two reactions when Mike Alstott carries the ball. The oooh! And the aaah!
When he's running over linebackers and punishing tacklers, you hear the oooh. When he's fumbling in an effort to get extra mileage when the game is on the line, you hear the aaah.
Sunday, there was a bit of both.
First, the oooh.
In a game where the Bucs offense played mostly without a charge, Alstott provided just about every spark. He crashed and banged. Rambled and bruised. Bowled over, and then bowled over some more.
In the end, Alstott gained a career-best 131 yards on a career- high 25 carries and scored the Bucs' only touchdown in a 13-10 win over Denver. It was the third 100-yard game of his career.
"A lot of the film we watched during the week, a lot of the teams had success running the ball and we're a running team first," Alstott said. "That's what we wanted to establish and that's what we did. They started bringing nine, 10 men in the box, and we did a good job picking them up and did something to pick up positive yards. We usually bring up the safeties and try to force them back inside and run them over or make them miss and we did a good job of that (Sunday)."
Alstott was particularly effective the early stages of the game when the Bucs clearly were trying to establish the running game. He rushed for 66 yards in the first quarter. On second and five at the Broncos 28-yard line, Alstott followed a block from tight end Patrick Hape, hit the line of scrimmage at full speed, shrugged off a tackle from cornerback Dale Carter and went into the end zone relatively untouched. "They were pretty tough up front," Hape said. "But we were hitting pretty hard, too. I just caught the guy in the hole and it was just enough to get (Mike) open."
Added Alstott: "When you're running it 25 times, you'll be pounding it, pounding it and then you see an opening like that and it's great. It's a tribute to the offensive line and to the lead blockers."
By the end of the first half, the 6-foot, 250-pounder who had 76 yards in the first two games, had matched that total on 14 carries.
"We had a great week of preparation and that helps a lot," he said. "We just went after them from the beginning. Some were 1-yard gains, some were 10, some were 20. It was a great fight by everyone."
Now, for the aaah. After fumbling five times last season, and routinely having defenders try to strip the ball, Alstott provided a moment of angst for the sellout crowd.
Ahead 13-10 with less than three minutes left in the game, Alstott took the handoff on second and 8 at Denver's 46 and hammered through the line of scrimmage for the first down. But he kept going and 17 yards later, on a hit from behind by linebacker Nate Wayne, he did the one thing the Bucs didn't need. He fumbled.
"It's a heartbreaker," Alstott said. "Obviously, you want to finish running the ball and running the clock down and all we needed was the first down. I tried to do more. It's just my mentality and it bit me in the end. All we really needed was the first down. They didn't have any timeouts. They got to me. The defense did a great job (of bailing me out) and I'm really proud of them."
Tony Dungy said he was pleased with Alstott's running but didn't let the fumble go unnoticed. "The last play of the game, when the game is over, you don't have to try to score," Dungy said. "You have to hang on to the ball."
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