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Bucs had no heart to leave in San Francisco
By GARY SHELTON
Published October 31, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO - One of these teams is awful. For the life of me, I cannot figure out which one.
One of these teams is a joke on offense. One of these teams cannot count on its defense at crucial times. One of these teams is down to a quarterback who seems to have been pulled from the studio audience.
One of these teams, I understand, is the pitiable, pathetic San Francisco Nedneys, a collection of nobodies on their way to nowhere.
The other team, I am told, is the Tampa Bay Bucs.
Which, from the look of it, is much, much worse.
Ah, what a 49-ton megaton stink bomb this one turned out to be. The Bucs managed to outdreck the worst team in professional football Sunday, somehow burrowing beneath the garbage dump to lose a 15-10 decision to the 49ers in a game that looked very much like the world's longest Starbucks ad.
How ugly was it? Put it this way: If Scooter Libby and Tom DeLay were forced to watch replays of this game two times, maybe three, most of us would call it even. They would have suffered enough.
In some ways, this did not feel like a defeat. This felt like an expose. For some time now, many of us have insisted the Bucs were not as good as their record would indicate. Turns out, they may not even be as good as the 49ers' record would indicate.
First suspect first: Yeah, you can pin this on Chris Simms if you wish. You can boo him, jeer him and tattoo the final score on his buttocks. You can make Luke McCown your new best buddy.
After all, Simms played poorly. He threw interceptions, he took bad sacks and he skipped passes like stones across a pond. Against the worst defense in the NFL, against a team that was giving up 35.3 points per game, Simms seemed overwhelmed. There was never a drive, never a play, where it felt as if Simms was a quarterback in control of the afternoon.
So, yeah, if you want, you can talk about how Simms let down the Bucs.
When you are done, you can talk about how the Bucs let down Simms.
For a good team, for even a mediocre team, playing to a level beneath the 49ers is an unforgivable performance. Isn't a team supposed to rally around a new quarterback? Aren't other players supposed to lift their performances?
That didn't happen on Sunday. Despite having every advantage, despite having every incentive, despite playing a take-out-the-trash opponent, the Bucs were terrible. They could not block. They could not run. At the most important times of the game, they could not play defense. It was as if they expected Simms to protect them rather than the other way around.
Start with the Bucs' leadership. Where in the dickens was it? Besides on the way home, that is?
Say this for Simeon Rice. At least he didn't have to watch. Rice was sent home with a note after missing a meeting on Saturday night. Judging by the Bucs' performance, Rice must have been in charge of bringing the game plan.
Given his history, this might be a difficult question to answer, but isn't Rice old enough to know better? This was an inexcusable transgression for a veteran player, particularly given the circumstances. Rice is paid darned well to be one of the voices on this team. When a team is 5-1, and playing with a new quarterback, it is not time to treat a team meeting as an 8 a.m. geometry class.
Today, Rice should greet every teammate at the locker door and ask for forgiveness. Who knows? Maybe he should call a meeting.
As long as we are searching for missing persons, where was the Bucs' running game?
Again, we are talking about the 49ers, who haven't tackled a running back on a meaningful play since the early '90s. Yet, against the Bucs, they were the '85 Bears. Not even the return of the Bucs' star running back, Studebaker Williams, seemed to help. Take away a 15-yard run on third-and-26, a throwaway down, and Williams would have finished the day with 12 carries for 5 yards.
Yes, the 49ers kept sneaking safeties toward the line just before the snap, which complicated things a bit. Still, these are the 49ers: 24th against the run, 32nd against the pass. You know what the 49ers had done well before this game? They had lined up for extra points, that's what. Then came Sunday, and the 49ers were busy scraping the Bucs from the bottom of their cleats.
For the Bucs, there were too many penalties. Again. There was too little pass rush. Again. There were too few victories on the offensive line. Again. There was too little urgency. Again.
Is all of that on the kid quarterback, too?
For crying out loud, the 49ers had a new quarterback, too. Actually, the 49ers had two of them, their third and fourth choices of the season. Yet, when the Bucs were within a field goal of pulling out in spite of themselves, the immortal Cody Pickett led those wacky 49ers downfield on a five-minute, 11-play drive for a field goal and a five-point lead that felt like a team running up the score.
Go ahead, then. Blame Simms for this one. He is the new quarterback, the convenient target. Yes, he has to make quicker reads, sharper throws, bigger plays. He has to get better in a hurry, or his turn won't last very long.
On the other hand, the Bucs have to get better around him, too. Or this season is going to catch up to them awfully fast.
Maybe at his next meeting, Gruden could talk about that. Provided everyone makes it, of course.
[Last modified October 31, 2005, 08:08:34]
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