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Michelle Kaufman, The St.Petersburg Times, published 18 December 1989
The Bucs wanted to stop Barry Sanders first and Detroit second - they failed to do either. Sanders ran for 104 yards for a club rookie rushing record of 1,312 for the season as he terrified Tampa Bay.
Journeyman QB Bob Gagliano threw two TD passes leading them to their first four-game winning streak since 1980. "I'm proud of this football team" Detroit head coach Wayne Fontes said. "When we started out in July, we said we were going to take it one game at a time and that is what we have done. No-one gave us much of a chance to do what we're doing now. They've shown tremendous character."
The Bucs only managed to avoid a shutout when back-up QB Joe Ferguson threw a 69-yard TD pass to Mark Carrier on the final play of the game. "Avoiding the shutout doesn't mean anything," Ray Perkins claimed. "The fact remains we lost the ball game. I think I caught them off guard with that pass call."
"They out-played us, no question about that, we were out-coached and out-played. If they've got cheerleaders, we were out-cheered. We could probably have saved ourselves a lot of time and money if we hadn't even showed up."
Gagliano scored on a two-yard TD pass to Richard Johnson and he later improved on that with a 55-yarder to Jason Phillips. Sanders then scored on a four-yard run with Eddie Murray weighing in with fieldgoals of 33,35,36 and 45 yards.
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