It's Title Time For Tampa Bay Jim Selman, The Tampa Tribune, published 21 December 1981 The 1981 NFC Central Division championship banner will flutter in the breezes of Tampa Bay, not in Michigan's snowy climate. The six-point underdog Buccaneers snatched the championship from the favoured Detroit Lions, 20-17, Sunday in the face of awesome odds. The Bucs second division title in three years sends them into the playoffs against NFC East Division champion Dallas on Jan. 2 at Texas Stadium. As fate would have it, Dallas could have assured the Bucs of a playoff wild card had they beaten the New York Giants on Saturday. But turnovers enabled the Giants to win, 13-10, in overtime. It didn't matter. The Bucs came into the Silverdome with nothing on their minds but beating the Lions. In winning, the Bucs - a 6-year-old team - denied the Lions of the championship prize that has evaded them since 1957. The Bucs, winning four of their last five games, finished 9-7 - second-best season record to their 10-6 mark in the 1979 championship year. Their 6-2 division mark equalled 1979's. The Lions, winning four of their last six, closed at 8-8. The margin of victory was a combination of many things, including 40- and 30-yard field goals by Bill Capece in the first and fourth quarters and a 34-yard miss by Detroit's Eddie Murray in the third. Facing the Bucs were the staggering odds of Detroit's 7-0 record in the Silverdome and the effect of the deafening noise from the Lions" 12th man - the crowd - in this indoor arena, site of Super Bowl XVI, Jan. 24. But Buc players said the noise created by a record crowd of 80,444 didn't faze them. "It helped," said flanker Kevin House, who teamed with quarterback Doug Williams on an 84-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter that gave the Bucs a 10-7 halftime lead. "I said to myself, "That's for us," and every time the crowd yelled, we would make a big play." It was House's only reception of the game, but it was a mighty important one on a very special day for him - his 24th birthday. Williams, 8-for-19 for 172 yards and without an interception or a sack by the Silver Rush defense, had another thought about the noise. "You talk about the 12th man on the field," he said. "I think we were the 12th man." Free safety Cedric Brown was like a 12th man himself, with two touchdown-saving interceptions of Eric Hipple passes, his eighth and ninth in a record year. The first was at the Bucs" 3, dodging a touchdown bullet in the second quarter and setting up Williams" TD pass to House. Then, when a Hipple pass to Fred Scott popped out of Scott's hands in the end zone in the fourth quarter, Brown was there again. The Bucs had dodged another bullet. Defensive end Lee Roy Selmon and nose tackle David Logan also combined as 12th men on a history-repeating defensive touchdown play that shot the Bucs ahead 20-10 in the fourth quarter. Selmon, injured for so long but playing perhaps his best game of the year, had two of the Bucs" four sacks. Included among Selmon's was a blindside hit on Hipple that forced a fumble that Logan scooped up at the 21 for a touchdown run. The two collaborated on a similar play of 60 yards against Lion quarterback Gary Danielson a year ago. With the Bucs up by 10, 13 1/2 minutes remained. But the game was far from over. That's the way the Bucs play them. First, came Brown's end-zone interception. Then came a 4 1/2-minute Buc drive, all on the ground, from the Buc 20 to the Detroit 35, in which the Lions were forced to use all three of their timeouts. But the drive ended with Williams losing 2 yards to the 38. In one minute, Hipple passed Detroit 62 yards, including an 8-yard touchdown pass to Leonard Thompson. The series got a 19-yard boost when a pass bounced off Scott's hands to running back Billy Sims. After the touchdown, everyone knew what to expect - an onside kick. The Bucs put the players on the forward line who are used to handling the football - receivers House, Theo Bell, Gerald Carter and Jim Obradovich, running backs Tony Davis and James Owens and linebacker Dana Nafziger, a former tight end. Eddie Murray's kick was downed in a melee of players at the Detroit 48 by Bell. All Williams had to do was fall on the ball to eat up the last minute, 20 seconds and sending the Bucs whooping and hollering to their dressing room alongside the distraught Lions. "It was a perfect kick," Bell said. "It popped up about 8 yards and out of my reach. Gerald got a hand on the ball and as I went down I got my hand under it and it was mine. "Tomorrow's my birthday," Bell grinned. "I'm telling you. What more can I ask for?" Hipple was a problem for the defense on rollouts, including an 8-yard touchdown run in the second quarter. He was 18 of 28 for 205 passing yards, but a victim of three of the four sacks and Brown's interceptions. Sims ran 19 times for 76 yards, but Owens gained 61 on 17 carries for the Bucs and had a key 35-yard pass reception with an acrobatic, falling-down catch to help set up Capece's 30-yard field goal. "It came down to the special teams just like Coach (Howard) Tippett (special teams coach) said it would," said guard Ray Snell. "Capece kicked the winning field goal and Murray missed one. It happened. That was the difference. It could have been a tie when they scored the last time." The Silverdome was plastered with banners, some of which were on the sacrilegious side. One proclaimed Hipple as God. But Bucs coach John McKay put things into perspective in proclaiming his great relief in the joyous dressing room. He declared, "Thank God, we won."