This Bucs team better than old flops, yet this 0-2 start feels so much worse
By JOHN ROMANO
Published September 19, 2006
TAMPA - Perhaps you have been around long enough to remember that first Buccaneers season in 1976. Steve Spurrier returned home to be the quarterback, and John McKay was making his debut as an NFL head coach. The Bucs opened at 0-2, and failed to score a point in those first two games.
This start is worse.
You might recall 1986 when, in Leeman Bennett's swan song as coach, the Bucs began 0-2 and were outscored 54-17. Or 1996, in Tony Dungy's first season, when the Bucs again were 0-2 and without a touchdown.
And, still, this one is worse.
It is not because these Bucs are somehow less talented than the teams that came 10, 20 or 30 years before them.
On the contrary, these Bucs are much, much better.
And that is what makes their 0-2 start much, much worse.
This is the most disappointing opening act Tampa Bay has ever known. Never have the Bucs started so poorly in a season when they were expected to be so good.
For heaven's sake, this is a playoff team. A team that returned 21 of 22 starters from an 11-win season.
This is a defense with a future Hall of Famer at linebacker. With one of the all-time sack leaders at defensive end. With a Pro Bowl cornerback, and the NFL's most highly regarded defensive coordinator.
This is an offense that boasts two receivers with 1,000-yard seasons on their resume. The tailback gained 1,000 yards last season, the fullback has been to six Pro Bowls and the head coach turned genius before puberty.
So how come they stink?
"I've got no answer for you," guard Sean Mahan said.
"I don't know what to tell you," tackle Kenyatta Walker said.
"Mystifying," coach Jon Gruden said.
The simplest explanation, of course, is the Bucs were not as good as we thought. Or, for that matter, as good as they thought.
They won an awful lot of games by slim margins last season, and that's beginning to look more like good fortune than good football.
Still, that miscalculation does not fully explain the comedy disguised as competition that we've seen the past two weeks.
The Bucs are unsure of their offensive strengths. They lack identity on defense. Their performance has bordered on criminal, and yet they have no clues.
It's as if everything they were once sure of is now open for debate. Chris Simms was supposed to be the quarterback of the future, and now he might not make it past next week. An offense that was going to focus on running the ball has not had a rushing play of more than 7 yards. A defense known for its savvy and leadership was incapable of making adjustments against the Falcons.
It could be that Tampa Bay was unfortunate enough to run into two of the finest teams in the NFL in the season's two weeks. That is certainly plausible.
Or it could be the Bucs have completely whiffed on a four-year mission to rebuild the offensive line, have underestimated the losses of assistant coaches Rod Marinelli and Mike Tomlin, and have painted themselves into a corner with no viable alternative to Simms at quarterback.
"The tape isn't all bad when you look at it. That's the sad thing," Gruden said. "I'm not going to stand up here and justify everything that happened. I'm just going to say there were some good things. Our receivers ran good routes, we caught the football. We got some great looks in the passing game, unfortunately we didn't convert on them."
The idea that all of the offense's woes can be traced to Simms' struggles is certainly simplistic and, perhaps, disingenuous. Gruden, on Monday, essentially absolved the offensive line and the receivers from blame in the Falcons game.
The running game, he said, has been troubled because the Bucs have been playing from behind. This is true, but only to a degree. Tampa Bay has not been blown out in the first half of either game. The Bucs certainly had the time and opportunity to establish a running attack in both games.
Yet Cadillac Williams gained 22 yards in the first half against Baltimore. He gained 26 yards in the first half against the Falcons.
That is not a function of playing from behind.
That is a complete inability to run the ball.
"We tried to get the running game going," Gruden said. "But (Williams') 15 carries for 37 yards doesn't exactly simulate what Atlanta did to us."
Somewhere in this mess an answer is hidden. Last season might have fooled us into believing the Bucs are better than they really are, but this team surely is not as bad as the first two weeks have indicated.
It could be that the players are not coming close to their potential, and in Simms' case that is certainly true. Or it could be that the coaching staff is not putting the players in the best position to succeed, which is definitely not out of the realm of possibility.
More than likely, there is a little bit of truth in both arguments.
The point is, wherever you choose to lay the blame, one realization should not be overlooked.
The most disappointing start in franchise history need not dissolve into the most unsatisfying finish.