Houston's Halloween hobby: Dilfer dunking Don Banks, The St.Petersburg Times, published 6 November 1995 This is how the NFL baptizes a young quarterback like Trent Dilfer: send wave after wave of blitzes at him and hope he doesn't turn the tide by completing a long pass. That's exactly the game plan deployed by the Oilers on Sunday, and it's not going to stay their little secret. Dilfer was pounded relentlessly by the Oilers' pass rush. He was sacked three times and intercepted three times, and struggled to complete 10 of 23 passes for a season-low 82 yards. On four occasions, he tried to make the Oilers pay by going deep to Alvin Harper. One of those throws was intercepted by Houston cornerback Cris Dishman. Harper caught one pass for 3 yards. "I think in a game like this one today, you had to hit a couple of those home runs," said Bucs coach Sam Wyche. "You knew what was coming and you knew what you had to do. You had to hit a couple of those home runs and if you do it, you win, actually. The game was very close. If you hit them, you win - or at least you're back in it. And if you don't hit them, it looks like you're completely out of it when really you're not." With his offensive line hobbled by injuries to center Tony Mayberry (thumb) and guard Ian Beckles (knee), Dilfer figured to put in a long day at the office. To make things more difficult, the Bucs were unable to use the shotgun because Mayberry has a difficult time gripping the ball and backup Mike Sullivan rarely plays. Once the Bucs fell behind in the second half, the Oilers held a team meeting in Dilfer's jersey. And the second-year quarterback wasn't helped by Tampa Bay's retreating ground game, which saw Errict Rhett limited to 37 yards on 13 carries. Dilfer and the Bucs weren't surprised by the Oilers' strategy. They've seen it all season. "I'm sure going into the season, that's what Trent and Sam would've both told you. We're going to see it all year," said Sullivan. "Now it's our jobs to make sure they don't do what they've been doing to him lately. He's shown everybody that if you give him the time, he'll produce for us." The idea going into the season was if you gave the Bucs Alvin Harper, he'd produce touchdowns in exactly the same conditions Houston provided Sunday. But Harper no longer is running fly patterns for Troy Aikman and the inexperience Dilfer has in working with the former Cowboys receiver still is evident. "It's just a matter of time. We're going to get it together," said Harper. "We've got no other choice but to get it together. With me or (Horace Copeland), we've got to get some deep balls thrown in there because they're sending the house at us, blitzing everybody. Once we start hitting those bombs and making those big plays downfield, it'll slow that down." Dilfer was understandably subdued after the loss and offered little explanation for the Bucs' continuing failure on offense. "They definitely brought the house and we just didn't execute well enough," Dilfer said. "They didn't surprise us with the blitz, we just didn't execute. I'm just frustrated. It was a bad loss. There's nothing pretty about this loss. It's very serious to me. Hopefully, this game doesn't have any bearing on the rest of the season. It was pathetic."