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Bucs

Picture if you will 1995 and 5 dash 2

By GARY SHELTON
Published November 6, 2005

There is something familiar about the neighborhood. You could swear you have been here before.

The trees are the same. And the houses. The end zones look as untrodden as ever.

Even the headlines are unchanged. There is a scandal in Washington. The courtrooms of California have found someone else too famous to convict. Hurricanes are still plentiful, gas prices are still too high.

Yet, something tells you you are out of time. The street signs suggest you are on the corner of Wyche and Dilfer, down the block from Alvin Harper Parkway. The stadium is out of place. Someone has painted a winking pirate on the helmet.

Also, the Bucs are 5 dash 2.

Oh, no. It's 1995 all over again!

Feel free to scream. There is jet lag, and there is time travel, and who knew the Bucs were going to have to deal with both? Somehow, Tampa Bay has quantum-leaped its way into the past, and now, it has to work its way out of the same problems it has spent a decade trying to forget.

The young quarterback looks confused. The young running back looks smothered. The coach, an offensive guru, is in his fourth year. The general manager, son of a legendary coach, is in his second. One of the ends doesn't seem to grasp the concept of team.

Check the standings closely. The record might as well be 5 dash deja vu.

Who in the name of Bill and Ted is responsible for trying to pass off a used season as new?

Here we are again, trapped between a record that seems inflated and a schedule that looks daunting. There is a familiar vacancy in the plan, an old vulnerability in the performance. We have gone back in time. It is only a shame we stopped in '95; a little harder push, and perhaps we could have kept Lincoln away from the theater.

Oh, I know what you are thinking. If you could turn back time, you would have prefered to have stopped in 2002. Maybe 1997. Or 1979. The Bucs were 5-2 in all of those seasons, too, and things turned out okay. In 2002, the Bucs went on to win the Super Bowl. In '97, they made it to the second round of the playoffs. In '79, they reached the NFC title game.

The thing is, this year doesn't feel like those seasons. In those years, there was a newness to the Bucs, as if they were about to grow into something special. In '02, Jon Gruden was in his first year, and his team was just learning his offense. The '97 season was Tony Dungy's first good year, and young stars were emerging. In '79, the Bucs' Worst-to-First season, the Bucs were not far removed from their 0-26 start.

This season doesn't feel like any of those. It has the out-of-control, falling-from-an-airplane feeling of '95, back when there was a temptation to hold the standings up to the light like counterfeit money. Everyone knew the record was good. Everyone knew the team was not.

These days, you have Chris Simms playing the role of Trent Dilfer. Remember Dilfer in the pocket then, looking at the defenses as if they were abstract art? Two seasons later, Dilfer would have a good season for the Bucs, and five years later, he would help the Ravens win a Super Bowl.

That year, however, Dilfer was a bad fit in Sam Wyche's offense. He locked on to primary receivers, he seemed uncomfortable in the pocket and he made mind-numbing mistakes. Remind you of anyone?

It is far too early for a final verdict on Simms, of course. So far, however, he has not shown that he can make decisions quickly enough, which Gruden's offense demands, to become the quarterback the team needs him to be.

At least Simms has Cadillac Williams. On the other hand, Dilfer had Errict Rhett. Once, many were concerned that Rhett was being asked to carry the ball too many times for a 210-pound running back, too.

At 5-2, Rhett was on his way to his second straight 1,000-yard season. He held out the first month of the '96 season, however, and he was never again an impact player in the NFL.

What else do we have? In the role of the veteran who doesn't get it, we have an offensive end (Harper) being replaced by a defensive one (Simeon Rice). In the role of optimistic leader, we have Derrick Brooks replacing Hardy Nickerson. Starring as a kick returner going nowhere, we have Bobby Joe Edmonds replaced by Torrie Cox. And so on.

Seven games into the '95 season, the Bucs had not beaten a team that entered the game with a winning record. They won by stopping Washington on the 1, by beating expansion Carolina when the Panthers fumbled twice in the red zone, when Minnesota missed a field-goal attempt in overtime.

Seven games into the '05 season, the Bucs have not beaten a team with a winning record. They won when Minnesota got a rotten call on an offensive pass-interference play, when a fumble by Brian Griese was nullified by a technicality, when a replay negated a late Lions' touchdown.

A decade ago, the league caught up to the Bucs. The '95 team won only twice afterward, and the locker room turned ugly. That team finished 7 dash 9.

We have all seen the time-travel movies. By now, we know the protagonist is thrust into familiar circumstances, and he struggles mightily to alter fate, but he cannot. No one listens to his warnings. No one changes his plans. The Titanic still hits the iceberg.

This, then, is the challenge ahead of Gruden. He has to coach the orange out of the Bucs. He has to de-Dilfer Simms. He has to un-Harper Rice. He has navigate the waters that sank a franchise 10 seasons ago.

Above all else, he has to get this time machine safely to the present. Or, at least, to '02.

Hey, we've all seen the game films. Everybody loses in the end.

Trust me. Nobody wants to party like it's 1995.

[Last modified November 6, 2005, 01:59:22]