It's The End Of The Road, And Don't Check The Mirror Martin Fennelly, The Tampa Tribune, published 29 December 2003 Let's get out of here. Away from this nightmare. ``Just get on the bus,'' Simeon Rice said. The Bucs begged the clock to hurry. They counted down the seconds in their last game as reigning Super Bowl champions. It was like waiting for the ball to drop on New Year's Eve, except the Bucs dropped the ball a long time ago. They didn't want last season to end. That was then. Now their Grand Ole Soap Opry was over. They couldn't wait to leave Nashville. They played like it, losing 33-13 to the Tennessee Titans, taken apart by Neil O'Donnell, 37, who had spent the past four months unemployed, working out at a Nashville YMCA, who hadn't thrown a touchdown in nearly two years. He threw two Sunday. Can we go now? Yes, the finale had an old-time Bucs quality, the sort of numbing nothingness that was this franchise before it learned how to win. You have to go back to 1995, Sam Wyche's last season, for the last time the Bucs finished 7-9. That is, until Sunday. Losers. The record book will say so. So did Derrick Brooks' eyes when it was finally, mercifully over. ``Been a long time since we were 7-9,'' Brooks said. A long time. ``It's real sickening.'' So ended 11 months that seemed like 11 years. It went on so long that Jon Gruden went from Chucky to ground chucky. Keyshawn wasn't around for the finish. Neither was Rich McKay. Missing, too, was any semblance of the team that turned Tampa into Titletown. This season became an annoyance. It put the ``acle'' in debacle. We can't get rid of it fast enough. The week of the McKay fiasco - not be confused with the other fiascoes - one of Gruden's assistant coaches stopped to ask a reporter a question. ``We did win the Super Bowl, right?'' Just checking. Bucs historians, when not puking, will spend the offseason trying to pinpoint the precise moment when the princes became paupers. ``Have fun,'' Ronde Barber said. There will be a lot of suspects. There will be a lot of changes. ``It was never easy for us,'' Barber said. ``Just get on the bus,'' Rice said. ``Move on. Put this chapter out of your mind. Realize what you went through and learn from it.'' Learn what? ``Humbleness,'' Rice said. ``Hunger. Good genuine effort plays a big factor year in and year out. ... It was attitude. It was attitude. Attitude is what sets you apart.'' There was a time when there was disbelief around One Buc, disbelief at what was happening. That was part of the problem. So were injuries. So were the excuses. None of them could erase where the Bucs wound up. ``This is rock bottom,'' Rice said. ``As low as you go. Going home.'' You lingered at Brooks' locker. He is one of three Bucs left from that 7-9 season in 1995. The others are John Lynch and Warren Sapp. They helped transform this franchise. They won it all. They helped make real history. They wanted more this season. They got a lot less. Lynch left Sunday's game when he aggravated a shoulder stinger. He faces offseason surgery and a comeback. Sapp might have played his last game as a Buc. There stood Brooks, all that pride, all that pain. He thought he was through with seasons like this. ``It hurts,'' he said. ``I don't like losing. I'm not making excuses for losing. I'm not going to be associated with losing as long as I'm here.'' But these Bucs were. ``That's what I don't think a lot of guys understand right now. They hurt. I trust they're very disappointed. But it goes deeper with me. All I can promise our fans is I'll be back. Next year for me is going to be personal. I'm making it personal right now to get this team a Super Bowl.'' The locker room was emptying. ``We'll be back,'' Barber said. Derrick Brooks packed his bag and walked to the bus. It left early this season.