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Bucs

Season hinges on defense dealing with several issues

By JOHN ROMANO
Published August 28, 2005

MIAMI - The lights went down, the videotape clicked on, and just like that, it was 1999 again. Tampa Bay's defense was young, and the NFL was nervous.

Linebackers streaked across the screen. Defensive backs showed up with menace in their hearts. It was a defense as relentless as you recall. Somewhere beyond mean and just short of vicious.

The screen flickered, and it was 1997 again. Some of the numbers and names were unfamiliar, but the mood was the same. A defense was growing into its legend, finding its personality on the run.

This is how the Buccaneers spent Friday night at the team hotel, watching videotapes of the defense they used to be.

And they spent Saturday night trying to turn back time.

"We've got to re-establish our personality," linebacker Derrick Brooks said. "That group I played with back then, you saw a personality. Guys trusting each other. Embarrassed if they didn't make it to the pile in time. Now it's time for a new personality to come along and get established."

No one around One Buc Place would dare say it, but already we have reached the same conclusion that seems to have defined seasons past. If the Bucs are to have any success at all this season, it will be because of the defense.

Sure, there are reasons to be more optimistic about the offense. The flashes of excitement from Cadillac Williams. The fresh legs on Joey Galloway. The tight end combination of Anthony Becht and Alex Smith.

But most of that is hope rather than confirmation. Hope that the offensive line gives Williams a chance to run and Brian Griese a chance to throw.

Until then, the season hinges on the ferocity of the defense, which is the way it has been for the last, oh, 30 years or so.

It is, as much as anything, a state of mind. An expectation that the defense will be so good, little else matters.

That is what the Bucs were seeking in their Friday night meeting.

"We looked at that standard of Hardy (Nickerson) and John (Lynch) and the Rufus Porters of the world," cornerback Ronde Barber said. "Those guys laid the foundation of the standard that we're trying to live up to. We know we have to get back to it. It's that physical type of football. Safeties capping off piles, creating turnovers. We're getting there. We're getting there."

There are times you see it. When Barber cuts in front of a Dolphins receiver for another interception. When Jermaine Phillips lowers his helmet and knocks the ball from Ronnie Brown's hands.

There are plays when they stalk, pursue and overwhelm exactly the way you remember. A collection of nightmares for a quarterback to endure.

And then there are moments when receivers are left wandering alone in the secondary. When Ricky Williams runs by defensive linemen as if they were potted plants.

Yes, the Bucs have a defense of living memories. Both old and familiar.

Which, depending on the moment, can either be a comfort or a concern.

The statistics suggested the Bucs were still a defense of some stature last season, but too often, it did not feel that way.

It was a defense that disappeared when it mattered most. On opening drives. On final drives. On third down.

Those same nagging fears made an appearance Saturday night. Miami, a team without a quarterback and with little danger in its eyes, blew past the Bucs on the game's opening drive.

As it turns out, that was the only scoring drive Miami had against the first-team defense, which played much of the first half.

But you got the sense that had the Dolphins been committed to running the ball, they could have stayed on the field all night. They rushed for 85 yards in the first two quarters, and that was with Williams sitting out entire possessions.

"We still have a lot to show," linebacker Shelton Quarles said. "We didn't play the run particularly well last year, and tonight, we didn't start out playing the run well. We have to be better."

Really, they have no other choice.

There is no way the Bucs can count on the offense to carry them anywhere in 2005. The receivers are too fragile, the line is too shaky. The best they can hope for is a solid ground game that can at least work the clock.

Which, of course, puts the season in the hands of the defense. The same place it has been since the Bucs drafted Lee Roy Selmon in 1976.

You saw signs of hope against the Dolphins Saturday. Enough to imagine a defense that still can move with swiftness and swagger.

You also saw signs of a defense struggling to live up to its own remarkable standards. A defense fighting the years as well as the opponent.

"Watching those tapes told me I've still got a lot of work to do," Brooks said. "You think you're there and then you go back in time and watch some of those things and realize you're not.

"We can still be that defense, if we work to get there."

[Last modified August 28, 2005, 01:15:11]