Know this about the Bucs - the playoffs are next Martin Fennelly, The Tampa Tribune , published 30 December 2001 They're in. After all the talk, the ups and downs, the bonehead play calls on offense, those rumors about coaching changes, you couldn't escape a simple fact Saturday night. The Bucs are in. For the fourth time in five seasons, Tony Dungy has a playoff team. OK, so it's not official. The Falcons could still catch the Bucs by beating Miami today and then St. Louis next week, though they would have to beat the Rams by 82 points or something like that. The Bucs are in. We don't know what it means. It doesn't make this team, winners of five of six, the sleeper team to beat in the NFC. This offense beats itself too much to think that. It doesn't mean the road gets easy. Playing out of the 6 hole as the last wild-card entry isn't exactly where you want to be. All we knew Saturday is that the Bucs are in. And that they came to play. “We had to make a statement,” Derrick Brooks said. They came to play on a night the world champion Baltimore Ravens were in town for the first time since they took apart the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV. They came to play in a game that the Ravens needed, too, at least to move toward a home wild- card game. They came to play and dropped the defensive hammer on a team that just a year ago had one of the great defenses of all time. The Bucs owned the field position. The Bucs owned the game. They came to play as they did last Sunday with the Saints. They showed up for the second week in a row, something that hasn't happened much. They made play after play and won 22-10. The defense rose up as if this was a personal challenge. They outplayed Ray Lewis and the Ravens defense. From the start, the Bucs made this their night. Elvis Grbac's fourth pass of the game was tipped by Brooks, bobbled, then booted by Jamie Duncan ... into the hands of Ronde Barber. What doesn't end up in Barber's hands this season? Grbac was almost picked off the next time around by Donnie Abraham, but the ball went through Abraham's hands. This game didn't go through the Bucs' hands. Yes, they tried. Given the ball twice inside Baltimore territory to start the night, Clyde Christensen somehow managed to come up with six plays that lost a combined 5 yards. Two punts. Would they kick this one away? Here's your answer: They're in. They kept making plays, even after the Ravens went ahead when Travis Taylor pushed off Abraham and caught a touchdown. It was 7-3. That might have seemed uphill against last year's Ravens defense. The Bucs scrambled for six more points, and suddenly they had nine, all off the foot of Doug Brien, Martin Gramatica's replacement. Then the defense made it impossible for the offense to not score. Derrick Brooks made it so. He picked off a Grbac pass and rumbled 53 yards until he pewtered out inside the Baltimore 1. Brad Johnson took it from there, sneaking in for a 16-7 lead. But this offense will be the death of the Bucs yet. It nearly wasted all that defense. It opened the door instead of closing it. That's how, Brien's first miss, late in the third quarter, began to loom, particularly after Baltimore closed to 16-10. But this would not be one of those nights. The Bucs' defense willed that. They came from everywhere. You couldn't keep track of all the uniform numbers: 97, 20, 99, 55, 92, 34 ... they went on and on. The Ravens had the ball late, but had no real shot. Dexter Jackson's sack of Grbac said so. Brooks' fourth-down stop on Qadry Ismail said so. The Bucs said so. Even the offense picked up the scent. It hadn't turned the ball over all night, and that's something. Now Mike Alstott went 32 yards to seal it. Some Ravens grabbed hold as he neared the end zone. It didn't matter. He was in. So is his team. We don't know what it means beyond that. “We expect to be in the playoffs and we expect to do some damage once we get in there,” Warren Sapp said. That doesn't mean it will happen. It was a tortured ride to the postseason, painful to watch at times. Maybe this team has learned to string big games together. But who knows if those Bucs will stick around? Who knows what would have happened if they had played like this early in the season? Now we just wonder if they'll stay hot. We knew only one thing Saturday. We'll get a chance to find out. You see, they're in.