Bucs defend backfired call

Jon Gruden was trying to create options for his QB on a fourth-and-1 pass play that failed.

By MARC TOPKIN
Published January 8, 2006

TAMPA - Jon Gruden has not been shy about making some gutsy calls this season.

He made one Saturday when he decided midway through the final quarter to go for it on fourth and 1 to keep alive a drive for a tying touchdown. Then he made an even bigger one in deciding how the Bucs would try - unsuccessfully, it turned out - to get it.

Rather than put the ball in the good hands of Mike Alstott, Gruden instead called for Chris Simms to attempt a play-action pass to Jameel Cook that the Redskins had perfectly defensed.

"He's made some gutsy calls this year that worked out for us," center John Wade said. "He can only make the calls. He can't execute the plays. It's not about the calls, it's about the execution. He's the head coach. I trust what he does and I trust his reasons."

Gruden said there was a simple reason he didn't run Alstott on fourth down: because he failed to convert on the previous play.

The original play call was for a run by Cadillac Williams. With the Redskins shuttling a fifth defensive lineman onto the field, Gruden called timeout and decided he didn't want to try going up the middle again with the ball on the 18 and a chance to tie in Tampa Bay's grasp.

"We ran Alstott on third and 1, if you were at the game. We decided on fourth and 1 we might try something else, although I will second-guess myself because the play we did choose didn't work," Gruden said. "I thought we better get Chris a couple options - throw it to Jameel Cook, throw it to Ike Hilliard, throw it to Anthony Becht or possibly run it himself - because it wasn't very good on third down prior to that."

Alstott said he would have liked to run the ball again, but he would, as would his teammates, in any key situation. "Everyone wants to make the great plays and keep the drive going, but there's only one ball," he said.

Gruden liked the matchup, but the Redskins apparently did, too. They broke through to pressure Simms. They covered Cook. And they took over on downs at a crucial time.

"Unfortunately the Redskins made a great play there," Gruden said. "We didn't handle the protection."

Cook said he thought he was open, but "you've got to get the ball to me."

"We've run that play and it's worked before," he said. "Obviously they watched their film, they went through their progressions and they stopped it. There ain't nothing we can do about it."

Simms said there wasn't much else he could have done.

"On third and 1 we tried to catch them off guard with a quick snap up the middle to Alstott," he said. "They're big up front. They are. They've got three guys in the middle that are really stout guys.

"Fourth and 1, they just had the right defense called for that situation. It's a play we've run a few times this year and had success, especially the last two weeks. They were just in the right defense."

As a result, the Bucs ended up in the wrong.

They could have attempted a 36-yard field goal that would have made it 17-13 with more than seven minutes to play.

"I don't think about that stuff, I just go out and play," Simms said. "Coach said, "Go for it;' we try to do our best to execute it. ... You just don't know in these type of games. You don't know when you're going to get back down there again. We're so close. We've been great on fourth and 1 all year long (2-for-3 going into play Saturday). Coach had the confidence in us to go get it done, and we just didn't get it done today."

[Last modified January 8, 2006, 00:45:14]