Truth Is, These Bucs Simply Not Worth Repeating Martin Fennelly, The Tampa Tribune, published 1 December 2003 Now they have a legacy. The 2003 Bucs, for all of history, never will be compared with the 2002 Bucs. We knew it before Sunday, but Sunday drove it home like nails in a coffin. Beaten by a bad team. Beaten without a whimper. Six feet under with four games left to kill. Barring a miracle this team doesn't deserve, if the Bucs want to go to the playoffs, they're going to have to ask the Lightning for tickets. This wretched 17-10 loss to the Jaguars ended in controversy, as far as some Bucs were concerned. A pass they thought Ronde Barber had intercepted, remarkably so - one last gasp - was overturned upon further review. Yeah, the officials did them in. Remember the Colts onside-kick call? Or was it injuries? Hey, didn't Tim Wansley's hamstring twang, leaving him a spectator as Jacksonville receiver Jimmy Smith laid out and hauled in the game-winning touchdown? Yeah, it was injuries this season. The Bucs and their fans can review all they want. It will never wash. Put away your car flags and your excuses and face facts. It wasn't breaks or bounces. The world champions were simply not up to repeating so much as the playoffs - not physically, not mentally, not in any way. That's the legacy. They strung their fans along for two more weeks than they deserved to be strung. People sat around after the Packers loss considering remarkably dim playoff scenarios, which grew slightly brighter after the Bucs beat the Giants and Green Bay and Dallas lost on Thanksgiving. It couldn't help the turkey the Bucs rolled out Sunday. In a game they had to have, they came out with nothing. In a game they managed 3 yards of offense in the first quarter, 69 yards in the first half, 221 yards all night. In a game they had to have, they made their usual 2003 mistakes. In a game they had to have, they couldn't beat a rookie quarterback. In a game they had to have, the other guys were more energized. And the other guys were 2-9. The last two truly meaningful passes of Brad Johnson's season were batted down. The defense that once set a record with 69 consecutive games with a sack has gone sackless in two of its past three games. All but ended, at four seasons, is the NFL's longest playoff run. Likewise talk of comebacks and six straight wins from a team that hasn't won two straight, a model of consistency turned mediocre. Before one play, the Jags' fat yellow mascot stood on the field taunting the Bucs defense. Taunted by the mascot of a 2-9 team. That's what it had come to. People will spend the rest of this season and every minute this offseason wondering what went wrong. Clearly, it went beyond Keyshawn. We'll take turns pinpointing the exact moment when the Bucs' world slipped out from under them. Most will choose the four-minute Monday night collapse against Indianapolis, a 21-point lead erased by a team coached by an old friend, Tony Dungy. At least it was symmetrical. Some say it began with Wansley getting torched by Indy. It ended Sunday with him beaten by Smith. Wansley then pulled up lame, just like this whole season. But you can't single out one kid. There's plenty of blame to go around on the Bucs. Want to know what some of us really remember from that Colts game? The defending champs celebrating too early. Later came the lack of accountability, the overarching denial, until it was too late. But some had had enough by Sunday night. ``I'm done with excuses and explanations for everything,'' Barber said. ``We just didn't win an important game. That's the bottom line, and this is a bottom-line business. Excuses are for incompetent people, and we're not incompetent people.'' They'll always have 2002. They never had 2003. Not ever. That's the bottom line. That's the legacy.