Alstott makes us forget Bucs' troubles ... for now

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© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 8, 2001

TAMPA -- One play, and everything changes.

One run, and a running back returns from the dead. One touchdown, and the boos are silenced. One victory, and a season lives on.

One moment, and none of the excruciating, torturous, maddening moments that came before it mattered.

Mike Alstott -- you remember him, right? -- did more than score a touchdown. He altered reality. He turned defeat into victory, failure into success and anger into joy.

He resurrected his career and resuscitated his team. In all likelihood, he kept you from kicking your television. That's a lot of ground to cover, even for a back who had covered a lot of ground.

Alstott rambled through the Packers for a 39-yard touchdown, and suddenly, nothing else seemed to matter. Not the passing attack that seems afraid of the deep. Not the battered offensive line. Not the offense that seems content with one touchdown a week. One play, and Alstott made all of those discussions mere background noise. No, he didn't cure the problems. He just allowed them to be put into the background.

Oh, if anyone should know about the background, it is Alstott. He has spent most of a year there, almost forgotten by a team he once strapped to his back. The nightmare of every impact player had happened to Alstott: He had been (gasp) role-playered.

Then came Sunday, and a fresh canvas. And guess what? The big lug is still a load. He still is willing to ram his head into the opponent's until one of them is woozy. He still is a big deal.

"He's one of those guys who is like a sledgehammer," offensive coordinator Clyde Christensen said. "You keep swinging it because you never know which swing is going to crack the rock."

For Alstott, it was his 14th carry of the game. "At the end, I was flying," he said. "I don't know if it looked that way or not. When I scored, it was like it breathed life into us."

Had Alstott not scored, had the Bucs lost, how frustrated would Bucs fans have been today? How much venom would have crossed the airwaves? Think of how the gloom would have hung in the Bucs' locker room? Think of the criticism that would be, well, here.

Again, it doesn't change things. For most of the game, the Bucs offense was awful. Watching it was very much like water torture, except instead of all those darned droplets, you get 3-yard passes on third and 10.

Other teams seem to find ways to score -- the Packers' touchdown came on third and 11, for goodness' sake. But the Bucs seem content to try to bleed an opponent with paper cuts, to nibble and sip all afternoon.

Perhaps that's why the booing started so quickly Sunday. Fans are frustrated. They want to know if Brad Johnson can go deep, if the coaches want to go deep. (For the record, Christensen said several deep passes were called and either the Packers were in the proper coverage or Johnson was sacked).

Today, you don't have to think about it. Today, revel in the comeback led by the comeback back. It has been a year since Alstott scored a touchdown, a year since he was featured in a game plan.

"It feels like an eternity," Alstott said.

It is hard not to feel good for Alstott, who has never griped over being made a Vandella after all those years as Martha Reeves. Time was, he was the most popular Buc. Now, the opinion appears evenly divided between those who believe he is overrated and those who believe he is underused.

Alstott is a big back, and like big backs, there are times he looks awful. If the defense can pierce the offensive line and get to his legs before they begin to churn, Alstott looks slow, cumbersome, and he stops at the line of scrimmage.

But when he can square his shoulders, when the defense has begun to feel the effects of the afternoon, tackling Alstott is like trying to stop a rolling boulder before it becomes an avalanche.

"It was a welcome sight," Warren Sapp said. "(Critics) have been riding him for a while. 'He's a fumble guy.' We know that's not true. He's won so many games for us."

Saturday, Sapp talked to Alstott to encourage him.

"I told him that strange things happen for a reason," Sapp said. "I told him, 'The ball's coming right back at you, big boy.' When he started running, I was yelling, 'The A-Train is loose, Daddy!"'

What if? What if Alstott hadn't broken the run? What if the Bucs were 0-2 in the division entering this week's game at Tennessee?

"Why do you want to worry about that?" Alstott said, grinning. "We made the plays. We scored the touchdown. We won the game. Why think about those other thoughts?"

Maybe Alstott has a point. Maybe you should think of the way Alstott left the field, his helmet in his right hand, pumping up and down. Maybe you should remember the cheers instead of the boos.

Besides, you can always grumble tomorrow.

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