Buckle Up: Bucs Paving Route In Playoffs Martin Fennelly, The Tampa Tribune, published 25 November 2002 They can see it. It's finally in front of them. The really good news is that Brad Johnson can see it. Granted, for a while Sunday he saw two of it, but it was still there, the real thing. The only way to go. ``Stop the road crews,'' Warren Sapp said when he wasn't saying other things. ``We're doing the paving. We're out to make one road to a Super Bowl, right through Tampa Bay.'' The view from atop the NFL. It doesn't mean much in November, but when you've never won a road playoff game, when you've flown two straight flying coffins to Philadelphia and lost to tundra and Brett Favre lightning in Green Bay, it comforts you. It was there for the taking after the Bucs pounded the Packers, 21-7. Suddenly, with five games left, it isn't just about the playoffs. It is about a leg up on Green Bay and everyone else. It is about postseason in a place where the Bucs fear no team. It is about home cooking with gas. If you don't think Sunday mattered, consider that the game-time temperature at Raymond James Stadium was 70 degrees, while the combined kickoff temperatures for the four championship games held at Lambeau Field is 43 degrees. The Bucs' fate is in their hot hands. The NFC South is theirs to win. They have the NFC where they want it. Now it's just a matter of wanting more. The day could not have broken better. The Saints also lost, falling behind the Falcons and farther behind the Bucs. It makes next Sunday night at the Superdome important, but not tie-breaking or life-threatening. The Bucs have never been in this position before - the pole position. It's usually the North Pole position. ``If we lose this one, you all are screaming cold weather to us for the next two months,'' Sapp said. No one is screaming. This team is hot. It has won nine games, including games it wouldn't have won last season. It finds a way to the top, no matter how it looks. Sunday was no different. ``Nothing new for us to get into a snot-to-snot game,'' Sapp said. Except now the other guys almost always seem to come out looking like Michael Jackson's nose. The defense, which has never been better, made Favre meaningless. He was intercepted four times after halftime, including twice by Brian Kelly and once by Ronde Barber, who fractured a thumb just last week. Who has time to be hurt on Jon Gruden's team? Everybody makes plays. And we mean everybody. One day, when we look back, the most important pass of the season might have come from Mark Arteaga, Gruden's assistant, who long-tossed the red bean bag that started the review that led to the reversal that led to Joe Jurevicius' go-ahead touchdown catch. Big Joe's left foot scraped enough blades of grass. ``He dotted the `i' with his left foot,'' the referee said. It looked like an exclamation point. Then there is the starting quarterback who will not die. First, it was cracked ribs. Sunday it was a poke in his right eye. Brad Johnson said he knew there was a problem on the next play, when he turned to hand off and saw two Michael Pittmans (Some of us are still waiting to see one). Johnson's teammates kept looking over at him. He disappeared into the locker room. But he came back. Johnson always comes back. ``Guy has bruised ribs, eyeball missing, doesn't matter,'' Jurevicius said. Johnson might never have meant more to his team than he did Sunday. He shook off double vision and played two to four times as well as Favre. He was safe, reliable and resilient. Favre will go to Canton, but never count out the bulldog in Brad Johnson. It is late November. Gruden's Bucs are starting to look more like the carving knife rather than the turkey. Speaking of sharp instruments, Sapp and Packers coach Mike Sherman nearly had to be separated after the game as Sherman confronted Sapp for a hit that left Packers lineman Chad Clifton in a Tampa hospital Sunday night. Heated words were exchanged. More might be exchanged if these teams meet in January. But you might not be able to see Sapp and Sherman's breath. Because it might happen in Tampa. It just might. Can you see it?