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Rick Stroud, The St.Petersburg Times, published 17 November 1997
The time finally came for the Buccaneers to bury the past Sunday. To erase all images of folly and failure and break the grasp of a losing legacy.
There is no more reason to revisit the gory days. Nothing to tether this Tampa Bay team to the experiment of Jack Thompson, the snubbing by Bo Jackson or the brilliant trade of Steve Young.
There are no parallels to the era of Ray Perkins or the error of Richard Williamson or the hocus-pocus of Sam Wyche.
These are not your father's Buccaneers. You would have to be more colorblind than Vinny Testaverde not to see the difference.
You have witnessed the worst. Now Tampa Bay's NFL team is back in first.
The Bucs did not merely snap their miserable string of 14 losing seasons. They unraveled it thread by thread.
It happened in the most meaningful way as the Bucs destroyed the defending AFC champion Patriots 27-7 to regain a share of first place in the NFC Central before a sellout crowd of 70,479 at Houlihan's Stadium.
"There's no better way to do it," Bucs linebacker Hardy Nickerson said. "Against a quality team, regain a share of first place, dominate the whole game, do what you want when you want to, the fans into it, a sellout crowd. There isn't any other situation or scenario you would rather have to bust through."
The Bucs' timing couldn't have been more perfect. Not only did they guarantee the third-best record in club history, but they moved into a three-way tie with Green Bay and Minnesota in the NFC Central, with some help.
The Packers were stunned 41-38 by previously winless Indianapolis and Minnesota was buried 38-15 at Detroit. "I've been saying after the game, `Put on your seat belts because here we go.' The sky is the limit for this team," Bucs defensive tackle Chidi Ahanotu said. "We're in first place again. It's a big, big win and it makes a statement for the nation."
The Bucs defense forced three turnovers, produced five sacks, held the Pats to a franchise-low 16 total yards in the first half and did not allow New England a first down until 10:34 remained in the third quarter. Only a garbage-time touchdown pass from Scott Zolak to tight end Lovett Purnell with eight seconds left, long after the Bucs had mercifully pulled most of their defensive starters, prevented the shutout.
The Patriots also were no match for the Bucs offense. Fullback Mike Alstott pounded the soft underbelly of New England's defense for 91 yards on 16 carries and a touchdown. He also caught three passes for 35 yards.
Alstott's running allowed the Bucs to nearly double the Patriots time of possession, 39:28 to 20:32.
"Alstott is totally awesome," New England safety Willie Clay said. "It's amazing. He's a pretty good back."
Trent Dilfer also carved up the Patriots through the air. He completed 21 of 29 passes for 209 yards and a touchdown to tight end Dave Moore.
It was the 18th TD pass of the season for Dilfer, one more than his three previous seasons combined. In fact, in the second half of the season, Dilfer has completed 49 of 74 passes for 523 yards with six TDs and no INTs for a 113.7 rating. The Bucs entered wary of all the Patriots' weapons and were probably relieved to learn that receiver Terry Glenn remained in New England because of a pulled hamstring.
But this was still a Patriots team that owned the NFL's fourth-ranked offense, averaging 352.8 yards.
The game plan was simply to try to prevent the Patriots and quarterback Drew Bledsoe from bombing them with big plays. The Bucs also were aware that New England had not won a game in two years in which it failed to score at least 23 points.
"We thought it would be a tough game. A dogfight," Bucs coach Tony Dungy said. "We talked about playing 60 minutes and winning in the fourth quarter."
Instead, it was total domination by the Bucs in all three phases of the game.
"No, this shouldn't have happened with the caliber of team we have," Pats safety Lawyer Milloy said. "It's not a fluke, they're a scary team to play. This one was 100 percent Buccaneers."
The scary thing is it could have been worse. The Bucs left a lot of points on the field. They lost a pair of fumbles and failed to score on fourth and goal just a foot from the end zone. But somehow, their 10-0 lead felt solid after Michael Husted kicked a 44-yard field goal with five seconds left in the first half.
"You're always concerned, especially with a guy like Bledsoe on the other side," Dungy said. "I made a couple decisions trying to get more points but it didn't work out. But I felt the way our defense was playing, if we could keep them bottled up and backed up, even if we didn't make the fourth and 1, we were still in good shape. But yeah, it was a concern not to be up by more the way we were dominating the stats."
The loss did nothing to extend the honeymoon for first-year Patriots coach Pete Carroll.
Including the loss to Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXI, New England is 6-6 over its past 12 games. The only one under more fire than Carroll was Bledsoe, who along with Zolak and Max Lane were involved in a nightclub incident in Foxboro Thursday night that left a 23-year-old woman hospitalized. All three players were attending a rock concert and jumped off the stage into the "mosh pit," injuring the woman and calling into question Carroll's control.
But nobody dared to blame it on Thursday's incident.
"I think they just kind of walked into a hornet's nest," Dungy said.
Bledsoe and his fourth-ranked offense went three-and-out on their first six possessions.
It wasn't until he completed a 10-yard pass to tight end Ben Coates with 10:34 left in the third quarter that the Patriots managed a first down. But by then, the Bucs led 17-0 and the rout was on. The Bucs held New England running back Curtis Martin to 26 yards on eight carries - all but eight coming on one run. Bledsoe finished 13-of-25 for 117 yards and was intercepted by cornerback Donnie Abraham and linebacker Derrick Brooks.
Carroll described the Pats effort as "pathetic" and "disgusting." But it was just another degree worse than their previous beatings against Green Bay and Minnesota.
"It must be Christmas time," Ahanotu said. "No loss of respect to them, they were AFC champions last year. But in this league, last year doesn't count. You've got to prove yourself year in and year out and we felt like they couldn't go four quarters with us in a heavyweight fight. We outhit them and outhustled them."
According to Dungy, it was a breakthrough game after close encounters at Green Bay and a loss at home last month to Minnesota.
"We had some games in the past against contenders and have come up a little bit short," Dungy said. "We wanted this one to prove to ourselves that we could beat good competition coming down the stretch and today we did that."
For center Tony Mayberry and tackle Paul Gruber, who have been part of the losing legacy through four of the six coaching regimes, the victory might have been a bit of a milestone.
"There are so many new players and new coaches from that time, that it's almost like I went to a different team at some point," Mayberry said. "These guys don't know anything about that losing. They don't understand eight wins was kind of a milestone. That's the way we want it. Me and Gruber are going to shut up and let them keep playing and go along for the ride."
The door has been slammed on Leeman Bennett and and Phil Krueger and stingy ownership under the late Hugh Culverhouse. There is only room for improvement.
"I'm still not going to say we're an elite football team, because we haven't gone into Green Bay and beaten them," Dilfer said. "We haven't gone to San Francisco. We haven't gone into people's homes that are Super Bowl teams and won big games. We've won big games, and we've played good against good people. But the key to this football team is not to worry about where we are. Don't worry about where we stand. If we don't play our game, we'll have a tough time winning."
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