Accept Bucs for what they are - average at best Martin Fennelly, The Tampa Tribune, published 12 November 2001 Had it all the way. OK, so you have to accept a few things before putting up with what the Bucs did Sunday. You have to forget that Super Bowl garbage. You have to understand: This is not a great team. It is often not a good team. Sometimes it has to reach down deep even to beat the bottom of the barrel. Only then can you deal with the happy faces in the winning locker room after a nail-biter that wouldn't normally seem worth the nails. Only then can you bask in 4-4. It took the Bucs 59 minutes, 56 seconds to win this ESPN Instant Classic, to take a whip and a chair to the winless Detroit Lions. It took the smallest man on the field making the three biggest points for your preseason favourites to break even the first half of the season. But understand what could have happened. Understand what went with a loss. "It's Hiroshima," Warren Sapp said. Accept that and you accept Sunday. Accept Buc ugly. Close your eyes. Hold your nose. And dance. "No more Fantasy Island," John Lynch said. "We're just out there grinding." They're plain! They're plain! These are the Bucs. They can be good, they can be bad. They can be bad, they can be good. They're like a lot of teams in this league. Nothing stands out. They can be the defense that makes big plays - Ronde Barber plays, Derrick Brooks plays. They can find their long lost sackers. They can be the defense that gives up a late touchdown that ties the game. They can be the offense that scores one touchdown against the 29th best defense in the NFL, that gains a combined 34 yards on the first five drives of the second half. They can be the offense that, on the sixth drive, hits on a two-minute drill. The offense of Brad Johnson to Keyshawn Johnson on third down and Brad Johnson to Warrick Dunn to set up Martin Gramatica's winning field goal. They can be special teams. They can be not so special teams. They can be all that in one person. They can be Karl Williams fumbling a punt. They can be Karl Williams taking a punt 84 yards for a touchdown and a 17-7 lead. They can be the team that blows such a lead, as they did just last Sunday in Green Bay. They can be the team that wins from ahead. Six games this season have come down to two-minute drills from one side or another. The Bucs are 3-3 in those games. 4-4. 3-3. See what we mean? Just accept it. Once you do that, you appreciate the joy of Gramatica, who made a birthday present for his father. You can dig Tony Dungy's optimism. "We've done a lot of damage from 4-4," Dungy said. And you actually can agree with Sapp's statement early in the week, not be confused with his statement Sunday (two sacks, doubling his season output). No, early this week, Sapp called this his most important game as an NFL player. Seven years! At the toothless Lions! "I really believed that if we lose to an 0-7 team, then where does the morale of this team go?" Sapp said. "It's Hiroshima. The nuts and bolts could have come right off, right here in Detroit." Mushroom Cloud City, daddy. The season that could have been over isn't. The Bucs willed themselves to victory simply because the alternative was unimaginable. It was often gruesome. The Lions were booed off the field by their fans at halftime. An hour later, they were standing over the Bucs, trash talking. "That is an excellent 0-8 team," Sapp said, seriously. The Bucs always are turning frogs into princes. But they are who they are. Why talk about the St. Louis Rams, who once upon a time beat the Bucs for an NFC title and who crushed Carolina Sunday, the team with the next worst record in the league. The Bucs aren't the Rams. They might not even be the Bears. We'll find out Sunday, when Chicago visits. Forget what comes after. Forget playoff implications. No more Fantasy Island. The Bucs are just another dinghy bobbing on NFL waters. Just row, boys. When you think small, every win is big.