TAMPA - Expectations and a first-place schedule can make like David Copperfield on Super Bowl teams and cause them to disappear the year after winning a world championship.
The Rams, Ravens and Patriots each failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs the season after claiming the Lombardi Trophy.
But the Bucs believe they are not one-hit wonderful.
They point to the fact that for five years before defeating the Raiders 48-21 in Super Bowl XXXVII, they had lived on the doorstep.
"I think when you look at the past three Super Bowl winners prior to us, all those guys came out of nowhere," receiver Keyshawn Johnson said. "The Rams stunk. Baltimore stunk. New England was terrible, they fired their coach a year earlier.
"We had been building with Tony (Dungy) for so long, even before I got here, they had been to the playoffs. Now we know how to get to the playoffs and win in the playoffs and win a Super Bowl. We know how hard it is to get there after six years. As for these other teams, it happened too fast. It was like peaking too fast, magazine covers, the quarterback all over the place ... all sorts of stuff."
The last team to repeat as Super Bowl champs, the Denver Broncos, had been a perennial playoff team under John Elway before coach Mike Shanahan pushed them over the top. The Packers, who won Super Bowl XXXI behind Brett Favre and lost to the Broncos in XXXII, had been chasing the Cowboys and 49ers for NFC supremacy.
"Some people take the flip side and say "when is the window of opportunity closing?"' safety John Lynch said. "I choose to look at it as we've been good for awhile, we finally got that belief, we know we can do it. We figured it out. I think one of the great assets of this team, too, (is) the way that Jon (Gruden) and Monte (Kiffin) and them coach. During the course of the season, we get better because we stick to the fundamentals. A lot of teams forget about those things and we get stronger. I think we're better than we were last year.
"It's a good point. Those other teams, why did they go away after one year? They put it all together after one year but didn't know how to get back."
QUARLES PROGNOSIS IMPROVES: Shelton Quarles had surgery to repair a broken bone and dislocated elbow in his left arm Saturday and Gruden is optimistic the Bucs middle linebacker could return sooner than six weeks.
Quarles broke the ulna - the smaller of two forearm bones - after falling awkwardly during a special teams drill Thursday. The extent of Quarles' elbow injury was even more of a concern and team officials originally thought he would miss 6-8 weeks.
"All reports are excellent and we expect him back sooner rather than later," Gruden said. "So we're very excited with the surgery and he still has a serious injury. But we're really optimistic about his return, and that could be soon.
"It was a clean break, it was a serious injury. But they felt if he rehabs it with discipline, which we know he will, there's a good chance he could return before six or eight weeks."
Fourth-year pro Nate Webster will start in Quarles' absence and be backed up by a committee of linebackers.
"It depends on the situation in the game," Gruden said. "It could be Derrick Brooks, he's got a little experience here as a linebacker. It could be Jack Golden, he's prepared to be the backup (middle) linebacker."
INJURIES: The status of defensive tackle Ellis Wyms, who sprained his ankle in the final preseason game, will be determined at gametime Monday night at Philadelphia.
