Usually Reliable Defense Fails To Step Up Joe Henderson, The Tampa Tribune, published 7 November 2005 Cheerleaders! Sex! Violence! OK, sorry. I'm busted. None of what follows has the slightest thing to do with the two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders who were arrested early Sunday after making out with each other and jousting with the cops in a bar along Channelside. But since this column is about the Bucs defense -- which didn't joust much in a dreadful 34-14 loss later in the day to Carolina -- we have to resort to cheap gimmicks to hook you. We're hoping, now that you know the truth, you'll have the stomach to read further. "It appears we got dominated," linebacker Derrick Brooks said, and, well, the man speaks the truth. It was as bad as it looked. Four turnovers by the offense, including an interception returned for a touchdown, didn't help the cause. But turnovers didn't help the Panthers drive 90 yards for a touchdown, as they did in the second quarter. The Bucs trailed only 10-7 and the crowd at Ray-Jay was into it after Josh Bidwell punted to the Carolina 10-yard line, where Chris Gamble made a fair catch. This defense was ranked No. 1 in the NFL entering this game, so what followed next isn't supposed to happen. Except it did. Carolina took five plays to go 90 yards, most of which was gobbled up on a 62-yard pass from quarterback Jake Delhomme to Ricky Proehl, the wide receiver with a penchant for sticking a knife through the Bucs' collective third and fourth ribs. A 1-yard run for a touchdown by Stephen Davis put the Panthers up 17-7. The game was never close again. You can't put all of this on the defense, but you sure can pile some of it there. Carolina averaged 5.6 yards per play, which is an eye-popping stat. Hey, they only suspended pat-downs outside the stadium before this game, but too many times in too many spots these Bucs -- on this day, anyway -- simply could not make a play when they had to. "They kept a lot of drives going against us," defensive tackle Booger McFarland said. "That gave them momentum. We just couldn't get off the field. They won this game because they made more plays. We had an opportunity to make a statement today and we couldn't do it." It goes deeper than just one game, too. Yes, the Bucs were ranked first in the league on defense, but that was compiled against a suspect chorus line of teams and quarterbacks. Carolina and Delhomme presented a whole set of problems incomparable to the likes of J.P. Losman, Joey Harrington and Gus Frerotte, and the Bucs couldn't cope. The Bucs also have lived for years on creating turnovers, but they have zero in their last three games. "It's been a long time since that happened," cornerback Brian Kelly said. It is a disquieting development for a team that, at 5-3, remains in the playoff hunt. But the offense will be led the rest of the way by a young quarterback who makes mistakes, so the defense will have to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden in the second half of the season. It's not fair, certainly. But it's the lot they have. "We've got to get back to the drawing board. A lot of these young kids may not realize losing is a sickness," cornerback Juran Bolden said. Carolina unquestionably has a mojo on the Bucs. That's five consecutive wins for the Panthers against the men in pewter, but the questions that were raised after this game are larger than usual. Stat of the game: Chris Simms, one tackle; Simeon Rice, zero tackles, zero sacks, zero quotes afterward, except to say he didn't want to talk. He did, however, apparently make all of the meetings beforehand, which was a marked improvement on last week at San Francisco. With the Bucs down 3-0 midway through the first, Cadillac Williams fumbled and Carolina recovered at the Bucs' 32. At this point, the defense needed to do what it always has and at least hold the Panthers to a field goal. Instead, Carolina made it look easy and scored a little more than two minutes later. No defense is going to stop every drive, but there are defining moments where either you do or don't, and these Bucs didn't. Now, they've gone from the NFC's best record to third place in their own division in only two weeks, and the toughest part of their schedule is still before them. So now what? They'll do the only thing they can; call upon the players who built this defense to begin with, and see how much magic people like Brooks have left. "Right now, we have a lot of young guys in this locker room and I have to do the best I can to get their spirits up, rely on my leadership," he said. "The most disappointing thing is, we had a good week of practice and today we didn't show up. One mistake after another, and before you know it, we're down." It adds up to domination, and not in a good way. That's where we came in. What happens next, no one can say for sure. In the past you could count on this defense rising to whatever occasion was demanded, and if the Bucs are to salvage a spot in the playoffs, that's what will have to happen again. Right now though, you can understand if no one is getting that vibe.