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Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune, published 17 January 2000
A solid defensive effort and a little luck helped the Bucs beat the Redskins by the thinnest of margins to advance to the NFC Championship Game. That combination got the Bucs into the playoffs this season and Saturday it kept their fairy tale-like season alive as Tampa Bay rallied from 13 points down to beat the Washington Redskins 14-13 and advance to the NFC Championship Game for the second time in history.
Up next for the Bucs is the winner of today's Vikings-Rams game in St. Louis. The Bucs want the underdog Vikings because it would mean playing their first NFC title game in 20 years at Raymond James Stadium, the site of Saturday's miracle comeback. If the Rams win, next Sunday's NFC title game will be played in St. Louis. Don't be surprised if they get their wish. It has been that kind of season for the Bucs (12-5), who continue to ride an uncanny wave of good fortune. The Bucs don't see it that way, of course. Not all of them do, anyway. They would rather attribute their dozen victories and their close proximity to the Super Bowl to hard work, dedication and character. But how can you not acknowledge the role fate has played after what happened in front of a record gathering of 65,835 witnesses at RJS on Saturday?
There was the usual stuff, such as a pass interference penalty that gave the Bucs a 31-yard gain (their longest of the day) and helped set up their first touchdown. But there was much more of the unusual stuff such as a Shaun King fumble on a third-and-three play that somehow bounced into the hands of Warrick Dunn, who promptly turned a 5-yard loss into a 13-yard gain and a first down that set up the winning score early in the fourth quarter. And there was Redskins long snapper Dan Turk, a former Buc and a top-notch center, snapping a grounder to holder Brad Johnson on the Redskins" 52-yard game-winning field goal attempt, which resulted in Floyd Young making a game-clinching sack of Johnson with 1:08 remaining. "We've been fortunate this year, no doubt," Dunn said. "Silly plays like that are made and we somehow capitalise."
That's how Coach Tony Dungy prefers to see it - his team capitalising and turning the tide themselves. It's not so much a matter of fate smiling on the Bucs as it is the Bucs making plays, he said, and it's hard to argue with that point either. After all, just as they have all season, the Bucs seemingly forced the hand of fate Saturday on several occasions in eliminating the Redskins (11-7) from the playoffs. There was John Lynch, intercepting a Johnson duck and sparking the comeback late in the third quarter with a play that set up the Bucs" first score. There was Mike Alstott, escaping from a web of Washington tacklers well behind the line of scrimmage and then rumbling in for the Bucs" first score six plays and 73 yards later.
There was defensive end Steve White, sacking Johnson and forcing a fumble that Warren Sapp recovered one series later to set up the Bucs" second scoring drive. And there was King, with Ndukwe Kalu in his face, hurriedly heaving the ball in the general direction of third-string tight end John Davis, who caught the ball in stride for the game-deciding touchdown. "That's how our team is," Dungy said. "When we need something, we find a way and get it. Guys make plays and that's what happened today. That's our style. It looks painful, but if we don't get too far behind we can play that style."
Just exactly what too far behind is has not been determined. The 13-point second-half deficit was the largest the Bucs have rallied from this season. Even Dungy acknowledges that his team can't continue to tempt fate in this way. "I don't think we would have won this game on the road," he said. That's not to say, of course, that the Bucs didn't still play winning football. They did, especially on defense. Against the second-ranked offense in the league, the second-ranked defense allowed two field goals, 46 yards rushing (37 for NFC rushing leader Stephen Davis) and 157 total yards. But those 157 yards were just 29 fewer than what the Bucs offense produced on a day when it struggled once again to move the ball the way it prefers - on the ground. Against the league's 27th worst rushing defense, Tampa Bay gained 44 yards rushing, its third-lowest rushing total of the season. "We didn't know why we weren't moving the ball," Dunn said. "I guess you could say we just didn't execute. But we did get lucky."
They also got better, at least in the second half. After a very shaky start in which King overthrew or underthrew virtually every pass attempt, completing just four of his first 16 passes, he finally found the range. But that didn't happen until after Brian Mitchell returned the second-half kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and King overthrew Jacquez Green one more time and was intercepted by Darrell Green. That set up Brett Conway's 48-yard field goal, which gave the Redskins their 13-0 lead. "It was pretty bleak at that point," Lynch said. "But we've been in that situation before. We've been behind like that, and so the talk on the sidelines was let's just keep playing. We knew something would happen for us."
What happened was Lynch intercepted Johnson to spark the Bucs' latest comeback that may propel them to unseen heights. "That was the biggest play of the year," said Sapp, who may get a good argument from, of all people, Dungy. Pressed on the matter, even the Bucs coach had to acknowledge Dunn's fumble recovery was some sort of fateful gift. "I don't necessarily believe in destiny and things like that," Dungy said. "But when we got that one, I kind of thought it might be our day."
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