Jocular Rice laughs off benching

The sack leader calls missed meeting an "honest mistake' he won't dwell on.

By RICK STROUD
Published November 3, 2005

TAMPA - Flashing a wide smile, Simeon Rice showed little remorse for missing a team meeting Saturday night that led to the Bucs' decision to send him home before their 15-10 loss to the 49ers.

When asked about his flight from San Francisco, Rice reached into his locker and pulled out a copy of Black Men magazine with a partially clothed woman on the cover.

"Beautiful. They put me in first class. They really took care of me, I appreciate it," Rice said Wednesday.

"Didn't do the movie, you know what I mean? But a first-class flight. A lot of magazines. This is a magazine like this here that I read coming home. ... A lot of beautiful women, you know what I mean? That's what I read on the flight home. First-class flight home."

Rice, the three-time Pro Bowl defensive end who leads the team with five sacks, said he was unaware the team meeting had been moved up an hour to 7 p.m.

"I didn't forget about the meeting, I thought it was at the regular time, 8 o'clock," Rice said. "They moved it to 7 o'clock. What can you do about it? Yeah, I showed up late.

"That's all it was. It was an honest mistake. Human error."

It's at least the second time in as many years Rice was absent from a team function during a road trip. In the 2004 season finale at Arizona, one week after sharply criticizing coach Jon Gruden for a lack of discipline, he missed a Saturday walk-through workout because it had been moved from Sun Devil Stadium.

Rice was fined but not deactivated for that game. He said Wednesday he had not missed a team meeting this season until Saturday night.

"No, it was all good," Rice said. "This year? Clean slate. You know what I mean? Of course, my past is checkered. But we're dealing with the now.

"I was a little surprised, but it's no major. You know what I mean? I'm still here. ... And he did what he needed to do. I'm not mad at him. It's the situation. That's life. I go on. ... It's business-like. I liked it. It was a great move. I'd have done it myself. Yeah, it was a great move. I learned my lesson."

Surrounded by television cameras and reporters in the Bucs locker room, Rice fielded questions about his transgression with the contriteness of a player who had missed a tackle, not a game.

Among the highlights:

What do you take from this experience?

"Nothing," Rice said.

Will you address your teammates?

"For what? I don't answer to my teammates," he said.

Does this hurt your reputation?

"No. It enhances it," Rice said. "I'm not a banner guy in the NFL anyway. You know, I'm hard to deal with, hard to get along with, I guess. So I hear my reputation is in this league, so it enhanced it. I got kicked out of the Pro Bowl."

And so it went. After several minutes, Rice finally indicated he disagreed with the Bucs' decision to make him inactive against the 49ers and hoped his team would win the game. He said he agreed with the decision to send him back to Tampa, rather than be a distraction, and he didn't learn of the outcome of the game until arriving home.

"I want this team to win. And like I said, there was no hard feelings," Rice said. "I was angry at the situation. You know what I mean? I'm a player. This is what I do. This is the only thing I think about doing. And for that to occur, it kind of threw me a curveball.

"Of course it hurts me not to play in any game, for the simple fact that I felt with my presence on the field, we would've had a chance to win the game. A bigger chance than we did. But life is what it is. You move on."

That's exactly what Bucs players and coaches said they planned to do Wednesday. "I'm not going to publicly say anything more about it other than we've addressed it and we're moving on," said Gruden, who met with Rice on Monday. "It's behind us. I think his comments stand. We think a lot of him, okay? He's really a good guy. We need him on this football team. We expect him to play great. He's a favorite of mine, a favorite of this team's and we're ready to roll, ready to move on."

Bucs players said disciplinary actions are handled on a case-by-case basis, but many expressed surprise he was deactivated for missing Saturday's meeting.

"There isn't any fallout," defensive tackle Anthony McFarland said. "It's a new week. It's Carolina week. We are going to load up all the hands on deck and go play. That's how we look at it. That's how I look at it. There is nothing left over, because you have to realize that regardless of what was done or what was said, you can't change anything."

Said Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber: "How do you know he didn't apologize? I love Simeon, man. That's all I'm going to say. He's my guy."

Certainly, Rice could have an impact this week against Carolina, which is tied for the division lead with Tampa Bay and Atlanta at 5-2 and has won four straight against the Bucs.

"It's going to be a monster game this week," Rice said. "I'm surprised they didn't move it back from (1 o'clock) to 4:15. ... And I'm on that now."

[Last modified November 3, 2005, 01:07:13]