Vinny's tired of being the Bucs' whipping boy Rick Stroud, The St.Petersburg Times, published 30 September 1991 The Tampa Bay Buccaneers may blame Vinny Testaverde for their scoring problems, but he made plenty of points after Sunday's loss to the Lions. Testaverde, benched in favor of starter Chris Chandler, said the 31-3 shellacking by the Lions proved that switching quarterbacks is not the answer to the Bucs' offensive woes. "I don't know what's going to happen," Testaverde said. "At this point, I just have to be concerned with myself. I don't care who the quarterback is, when you make that many mistakes, you're not going to have a chance to win." Chandler was forced to leave the game with a concussion early in the third quarter. He finished the game 10-of-26 for 64 yards and was intercepted once. He was sacked once but got flattened nearly every time he released the ball. In fact, Chandler was forced to make most of his yards on the ground. He accounted for 56 of the Bucs' 81 rushing yards by scrambling out of the pocket. "Chris hung in there today," Testaverde said. "He played tough. You can't do it on your back." Testaverde didn't fare much better than Chandler in relief, going 7-of-13 for 54 yards. He was intercepted once, and two other passes hit Lions defensive backs between the numbers before being dropped. But Testaverde said Sunday he is tired of being made the scapegoat by Bucs players, coaches and fans. "I've said from the first game if we continue to make the mistakes we've made, we're not going to win a football game this year," Testaverde said. "I don't think it was me that was the problem. I hear in the paper that Vinny hasn't played great. He hasn't been a franchise player. Well, it's hard to be that player when you have as many mistakes as we have. They (say they) want me to get rid of the ball earlier, that we're taking too many sacks. So you do it, and what is the result? An interception that gets you nowhere. I think from now on I'm going to play quarterback the way I was taught to play and not listen to what everybody else is talking about. Not just outside the locker room, but inside." If that sounds like a slap to his teammates, Testaverde says, so be it. The Bucs' loss to the Lions Sunday provided all the ammunition he needed to gun down his critics. "I'm not going to take the blame for anybody's mistakes any more," Testaverde said. "If you make them, you're going to have to stand up and face them. Everybody seems to put it on me when somebody else screws up. I'm disappointed, too. Now more than earlier in the week because we didn't do any better with Chris in there. You can't play when you're on your back."