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Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune, published 20 November 2006
They needed this. They needed it badly. They needed it, if for no other reason than their collective psyches needed the boost. Still, it wasn't so much that the Bucs won on Sunday, it was how they won. They won without Shelton Quarles and without Simeon Rice; they won without Ellis Wyms and without Brian Kelly; they won, in the end, without Alex Smith and without Juran Bolden.
OK, it was only the Redskins, a team as scarred and decimated by injuries as the Bucs; a team down on its luck. None of that matters. They needed this - for the kids' sake.
"It's encouraging," veteran cornerback Ronde Barber said of the 20-17 victory the Bucs ground out Sunday at Raymond James Stadium. "We had a lot of kids in there for us and a lot of 'em played well. We can build off of this."
That's what it's about now - building. It's not about 2006 anymore. From here on it's about 2007 - and beyond. The coaches won't admit that because they can't. Still, their 3-7 record says it all. What it says is the Bucs needed this. They needed it because they needed to taste success again. They needed it because some had begun to wonder if they'd ever taste it again.
Take Cadillac Williams, the kid running back whose second season has been spent mostly in park. He never lost his confidence, he said, but he did lose his feel for the game.
He was all caught up in the details, he said, stuff like where to go on this play, whom to block on that one. He wasn't relaxed, wasn't in rhythm. He was thinking the game instead of playing it. Until Sunday.
After vowing the night before to go out and just have fun again, Williams ran like he did as a rookie, gaining 122 yards on 27 carries and 34 more on two pass receptions.
"I told [teammate] Mike [Clayton] on Saturday I was just going to go out and have fun and let loose," Williams said. "That's all it was really, just me being relaxed. It felt good to get into a groove again."
It was one of the few times this year that Williams has been given a chance to get into a groove. Before Sunday, Coach Jon Gruden had regularly abandoned the run game whenever the Bucs fell behind or struggled to run well early on. Against the Redskins, however, Gruden stuck with the run even after the Bucs fell behind by seven early in the second half. A shard of success early in the game no doubt was the reason.
When Mike Alstott ran three times for 25 yards at the start of the Bucs' third series, Gruden had all the evidence he needed to know that he could run the ball successfully against Washington. It wasn't just that commitment that got the running game going, though. Alstott's success instilled some energy and confidence into Williams and a young offensive line finally held up its end of the bargain.
"Mike really got us going," Williams said. "I mean, when you see a guy break two or three tackles and get the crowd going the way he did, you can't help but get pumped up by that.
And the guys up front were really doing well. They were getting a really good push, and it wasn't just the line, either. It was guys like Michael Clayton and Ike Hilliard blocking downfield. It was everybody."
It was everybody doing everything. It was the young linemen opening holes in the running game and playing so well in pass protection that the Redskins didn't record a sack.
It was rookie quarterback Bruce Gradkowski giving the ball away twice, including once inside the red zone, but still putting together one of his better games overall.
It was a game in which he threw a pair of touchdown passes, one that he threw on the screws as Joey Galloway broke away from Carlos Rogers and one that Anthony Becht caught after the ball popped out of Galloway's hands. "I'm proud of myself," said Gradkowski, who completed 14 of 21 throws for 178 yards. "I made some key checks. As far as just noticing things and recognizing stuff, I took a step [Sunday]."
He wasn't the only one. Dewayne White, the fourth-year pro who started at right defensive end in place of Rice, harassed Redskins second-year quarterback Jason Campbell all day long, earning another sack and two quarterback hits. Barrett Ruud, who started ahead of Quarles at middle linebacker, turned in a solid performance, one in which he recorded six tackles while running a defense that gave up only 252 yards.
And then there was third-year pro Jon Bradley, who started ahead of Wyms. He was in Campbell's face all day as well. So were second-year tackle Jovan Haye and rookie tackle Julian Jenkins.
"Some of these guys on defense I don't even know very well," Gruden said afterward. "But guys like Jovan Haye and Jon Bradley I do know and they gave us everything they had. And I'm really proud of them and our young offensive linemen and our rookie quarterback. Every snap they play they're going to get better. You may not want to see all of those snaps, but every snap they play they get better."
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