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Scott Smith, Buccaneers.com, published 3 January 2005
So much happened, much of it bizarre and very little of it good for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Not during the 2004 season but on one play during the Bucs’ season-ending 12-7 loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. The play late in the first half did effectively sum up Tampa Bay’s 2004 struggles, however, and it included a crushed quarterback, an interception by a 301-pound defensive tackle, a helmet ripped violently off a head, a fumble that bounced about 30 yards downfield and a Buccaneer recovery that somehow didn’t count. The Bucs dropped to 5-11 with the loss, ending the season with a four-game losing streak that mirrored the first month of the campaign. QB Chris Simms, filling in for an injured Brian Griese (foot) looked sharp at times in his second career start but could muster only one scoring drive while turning the ball over three times.
The unusual of events before halftime started with Simms, who was hit hard by rookie LB Karlos Dansby as he threw. Another rookie, DT Darnell Dockett, snatched the resulting pop-up out of the air and started down the right sideline with his first career interception. T Kenyatta Walker then ripped off Dockett’s helmet on a tackle attempt, and WR Joe Jurevicius came up behind Dockett and poked the ball out of his arms. The fumbled football shot 30 yards downfield, where it was recovered by a hustling Michael Pittman. However, a personal foul penalty on Walker resulted in a rare ruling. The second turnover on the play was erased and the ball was given to Arizona near midfield. The Cardinals kicked a field goal a few plays later to push their halftime lead to 6-0.
That might be the most unusual moment of the season for many teams. For the Bucs, who have lost a string of games in frustrating fashion. it was business as usual. Well before the above sequence, the game looked ugly, in fact. The Buccaneers committed false starts before two of their first three plays and had to punt despite gaining 11 yards on three Michael Pittman yards. The Cardinals followed with a 47-yard field goal drive to open the scoring seven minutes into the first quarter. Neither team scored again until the closing seconds of the first half, with the Bucs repeatedly killing their own chances.
For instance, a drive that reached Arizona’s 25-yard line in the second quarter turned into a punt thanks to a third-down sack by Pro Bowl DE Bertrand Berry. Two minutes before halftime, the Bucs squandered field position inside Cardinal territory when a 22-yard punt return by Joey Galloway was erased by a 12-men-on-the-field penalty against Tampa Bay. The infraction, one of eight on the day for the Buccaneers, gave the Arizona offense enough yardage for a first down at their own 26. Then, after an interception by Dwight Smith moments later, a taunting penalty on former Cardinal S Dexter Jackson pushed the ball back to midfield and Dockett’s interception erased the scoring threat.
Tampa Bay did take a brief lead in the game thanks to one of the things that has gone very well for the team this year, the development of rookie WR Michael Clayton. Late in the third quarter, Clayton turned a simple five-yard stop into a career-long 75-yard touchdown catch, slicing through the secondary and eventually fending off CB Duane Starks as he tight-roped the last seven yards down the sideline. Clayton, who finished the game with two catches for 86 yards and the team’s only score, put an exclamation point on one of the best rookie seasons by a receiver in NFL history. He finished with 80 catches for 1,193 yards, the fifth and fourth-highest totals, respectively, in league annals by a rookie. He made a clean sweep of the Bucs’ rookie records and put up the fifth-most receptions and third-most receiving yards in franchise history among all players.
Even Clayton’s effort wasn’t without an unfortunate moment, however. With the Bucs facing fourth-and-two deep in their own territory at the two-minute warning, Clayton found a wide-open spot in the middle 20 yards downfield but dropped a perfect pass, ending the Bucs’ second-to-last comeback chance. The one-point lead afforded by Clayton’s long play didn’t last long. Arizona took the ensuing possession 56 yards to set up a 39-yard field goal by Neil Rackers, his third of the game in four tries.
The Bucs’ offense had four more tries to retake the lead, but suffered a series of miscues and never got back out of their own territory. One of those miscues was a fumble by RB Michael Pittman at the Bucs’ 19, setting up Rackers’ fourth field goal, a 31-yarder. LB Derrick Brooks deflected a third-down pass to keep Arizona from converting the turnover into a touchdown, but the Cardinals still increased their lead to five points.
Simms, in only his second career start, had an up-and-down game, completing 16 of 32 passes for 224 yards. He often scrambled effectively to buy time, but he also took four sacks. He got eight different receivers involved but missed a ninth, RB Earnest Graham, on a wide-open pass down the left sideline in the fourth quarter that would have been a go-ahead touchdown. Besides the pop-up on Dansby’s hit, none of his passes were intercepted until his last one, a pick on a deep pass over the middle by S Adrian Wilson that killed the Bucs’ last chance. He also missed on a pair of critical short throws to running backs, including a third-down play on the Bucs’ final drive that would have moved the chains. Clayton’s drop followed on the next play.
Simms also fumbled a snap in Bucs’ territory in the third quarter, leading to a scoring chance that the Bucs dodged when Rackers missed a 41-yard field goal. That gave the Bucs three giveaways on the day, balancing only one takeaway. Over the last four games, all losses, the Bucs turned the ball over 15 times and surrendered 37 points on the resulting returns or drives. In those same four games, they forced just two turnovers. The end of Sunday’s game was emblematic of the difference. After turning the ball over on downs at the two-minute warning, the Bucs had a chance to get it back when S Dexter Jackson forced a fumble by Emmitt Smith, but three Bucs failed to cover it up before it bounced out of bounds.
The Bucs did get the ball back when Rackers missed a 47-yard field goal, but Simms put it in Wilson’s territory on the first play from the Bucs’ 38, with a minute left. Tampa Bay’s defense finished a game without allowing a touchdown for the third time in the last seven games. They held an opponent under 250 yards of offense for the sixth time in 2004 and constantly swarmed to the ball on passing plays. Buccaneer defenders broke up 10 passes on the day, with several other passes defensed going uncredited. S Dwight Smith had his second straight inspired effort, recording eight tackles, an interception and three passes defensed, while CB Brian Kelly was all over the field, breaking up four passes to go with five stops. The Bucs did not record a single sack on the day, however.
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