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High hopesBucs fans have good reason to be excited about this season. But is the Super Bowl a realistic goal?By RICK STROUD © St. Petersburg Times, published September 3, 1998
What on earth were those boys sniffing at Sports Illustrated when they came up with this final result to the NFL season? Are they kidding? Have they completely lost their minds? It must be some kind of joke. Everybody knows the Bucs will absolutely crush the Jaguars in the Super Bowl. Okay, so that might not exactly have been your first reaction, but it was probably the second. It also illustrates how expectations rose higher than the temperature for the Bucs this summer.
The Bucs are expected to conquer the conference when they haven’t had a victory in two years against the best team in their division. Nobody is arguing that the Bucs are the team that is ready to take the next step. Just whether it might be off a cliff. “Absolutely, the obstacles we’re going to have to overcome are tons more than last year,” said Bucs safety John Lynch. “I’m sure if you ask a number of teams last year, they’ll tell you we did sneak up on them. We aren’t going to do that this year playing a second-place schedule. There are a lot of obstacles. But I think we’ve got the making of a team that can overcome them because of the fact we play fundamental football. We don’t people with gimmicks, so I don’t think we’ll be a one-year wonder because of it.” There are several sound reasons why the Bucs believe they won’t disappear like a mirage this season. Start with the fact that they are a team built on playing outstanding defense and running the football. Unlike the San Diegos and Cincinnatis of Super Bowls past, the Bucs did not get here by winning shootouts or tricking teams into making mistakes. Unlike Carolina, which lost in the NFC Championship game in ’97 before falling off the radar screen, they have only one starter on defense in his 30s. They finished third overall in the NFL in total defense, played aggressively on special teams and controlled the football and the clock. In fact, the Bucs sent their quarterback to the Pro Bowl in a season when they wound up dead last in passing offense. A year ago, the Bucs had one of the NFL’s best one-two punches in the backfield with Warrick Dunn and Mike Alstott. This off-season, they think they may have added the final puzzle pieces by luring away free agent Bert Emanuel from the Atlanta Falcons and drafting Florida receiver Jacquez Green. The Bucs scored a touchdown or less in five of their seven losses last season, so the improvement has to come on offense. When it does, Tampa Bay could be a contender for years to come. All eight players named to the NFC Pro Bowl team are signed through the ’99 season, and with 10 contract extensions executed in the off-season, the nucleus of the team will be together well into the next century. The Bucs were the second-youngest team in the NFL a year ago with an average age of 25.5. So why aren’t the Bucs being sized for championship rings just yet? Because one winning season in 15 qualifies you as an aberration, not a dynasty. “What we did last year was nice,” concedes quarterback Trent Dilfer. “It was especially nice for the city, but in the big scheme of things, we didn’t accomplish a whole lot. We won one playoff game. There’s teams that have been doing that 10 straight years. That’s not a huge accomplishment. We obviously are very hungry, we want to win a championship here. But we’re a long, long ways from that. That’s been glaringly obvious this preseason. We have a lot of improvement to do. But the good thing about it is this is the kind of team that is willing to work and take the steps to get there. “You get caught up in the trap that every game is a prelude to a Super Bowl performance. That’s not it. You want to continue to get better each week, you want to do the things you’re good at.” Lynch said the proof that the Bucs are still hungry came in the off-season when participation in the voluntary workouts actually increased. Once the smoke from the fireworks of their playoff win over Detroit cleared, they were able to get a better look at what they had accomplished. “Everything seemed like it was happening so fast then,” said Lynch. “There was so much euphoria after the Detroit game and we were busy getting ready for Green Bay. You never thought about the season suddenly being over. So it took a little while to come to terms with the finality of the situation. The off-season was a complete downer, to be honest with you, because you realize that while it felt so good at the time, we really didn’t do that much. “We won one playoff game and it seemed like we won a championship. It was a downer and I think that’s why we come back knowing that was great, but our expectations are a lot higher.” If the Bucs continue to win, it will be because coach Tony Dungy won’t let them lose their heads. In one of his first team meetings, he presented a list of teams that had enjoyed breakthrough years only to follow with a losing season. The message was clear. If you stop paying attention to the details, you will never get to see the big picture. “I don’t think these guys will be any different in the way they approach things,” said Dungy. “I can’t say we expected to go 5-0 to start the season last year, but we expected to be a good team. So it didn’t catch anybody by surprise we made the playoffs. We felt we were going to do that. It was kind of business as usual. I know it doesn’t seem like it, because for everyone else outside our organization, they may not have seen it coming. But our guys felt a lot of what happened last year would happen. So we’re just kind of taking the same approach. We want to get a little bit better. We want to work a little harder. Cut down on our mistakes. Then we’ll see.” The simplistic approach to the season for the Bucs is to focus on beating Green Bay, their nemesis and presumably the only team left to pass in the NFC Central standings. But Dungy is not as myopic as that. The Bucs went 3-5 in the division last year, so they’ve not exactly mastered the Vikings, Lions and Bears. In fact, they haven’t won at Soldier Field since ’89. “It may look like all we have to do is beat Green Bay on the surface,” said Dungy. “But the thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to play more consistent ball week-in and week-out. We can’t win 27-7 over New England and go up to Chicago and not be able to make 40 yards rushing against the Bears. We can’t have a five-game winning streak and then have a three-game losing streak. We’ve got to be able to play week-in and week-out. And if we play a good game against the Packers, things will take care of themselves. We haven’t really played our game against them and they’ve had something to do with it. A lot of people aren’t able to play their game against them. But if we can do that, where it doesn’t matter whether we’re playing Green Bay or whoever as long as we play our game, that’s when we’re going to get to the next level.” There are plenty of reasons to believe Ken Starr will receive an invitation to the White House before the Bucs do as world champions. • Dilfer has not missed a start in 48 regular-season games, second only to the Packers’ Brett Favre. For that matter, the Bucs went all last season without suffering a serious injury to a starter other than the broken collarbone that landed punter Tommy Barnhardt on injured reserve. A slew of injuries could seriously dampen their chances. • Emanuel might not be the Band-Aid the Bucs need to fix their passing game. Free agents normally take a few years to adjust to the new system and players. • The Bucs also have lost the element of surprise. Some teams simply didn’t believe in them despite their 5-0 start. Once they were taken seriously, they limped home with a 5-6 record. • Then there’s the SI jinx. Some teams still consider Tampa Bay’s record in ’97 a fairy tale and don’t expect the Cinderfellas to return to the ball. “I think Green Bay still doesn’t believe,” said Lynch. “I was watching a preseason game with them the other day and (Pat) Summerall was saying he talked to (Packers general manager) Ron Wolfe about the teams that concern him and he said it was the Vikings, not us. I think he’s got every right to do so, because we’ve lost to them five times in a row. Until we knock them off, I’d think like that, too. But I think down deep, they have to be a little nervous.” Here’s what should make you nervous. The Bucs are picked to go to the Super Bowl. Right. “It’s human nature to say we did it last year and think it’s all going to come back,” said Bucs defensive end Chidi Ahanotu. “But this game promises nothing to nobody. You have to earn it every year.”
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t was pure astonishment. That was the reaction of most true Bucs fans when the nation’s largest sports magazine predicted Tampa Bay to go 13-3, win the NFC Championship and appear in Super Bowl XXXIII at Pro Player Park in Miami on Jan. 31, where they would lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars 24-20. 