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A miscommunication results in Bucs punter Mark Royals standing in the backfield with no teammates trying to get open.
By SHARON GINN
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 19, 2001
TAMPA -- To the fans who shrieked that the Bucs blew it Sunday when they called a fake punt on fourth and 6 deep in their territory, down by eight in the fourth quarter, the players and coaches respond: You're absolutely right.
But where the mistake lies is a more complicated matter.
Coach Tony Dungy took the blame for the play in the postgame news conference, calling it "a screwup." Down 24-16 with 9:37 left, the Bucs were at their 25. Punter Mark Royals took the snap, looked downfield, saw nobody open, then tossed it to nearby Aaron Stecker, who took it a yard short of the first-down marker.
The Bucs were called for an ineligible receiver, but the Bears declined the penalty. Chicago took over on downs and got a 40-yard field goal that proved to be the deciding score.
"It wasn't a desperate call," Dungy said of the fake punt.
"It's just like any other play. You have to execute it, and we didn't. ... That has to come back to me."
Or not. What exactly happened is unclear, but there was obvious miscommunication between Stecker and Royals. Dungy confirmed that Royals was the only Bucs player on the field who didn't realize the play had been called off.
In practice, normally it is upback Rabih Abdullah's job to check for the defensive look on that play and signal to Royals. But Abdullah had left the game with a concussion, and the role fell to Stecker.
When the Bucs went out with the intention of trying the fake punt, Stecker apparently signaled to call it off, but "I never got the signal," Royals said.
Which is why when Royals went to throw, the rest of the Bucs were ready to block downfield and nobody appeared to be trying to get open to catch a pass.
"Some people knew" the play had been called off, and some people didn't, Stecker said. "It just didn't work. I'm not going to sit here and sell out my teammates. The team didn't execute."
Though he was adamant that he did not see the proper signal, Royals acknowledged that he could have handled the situation differently.
"I rely on hand signals to check me in or out of it," Royals said. "That wasn't communicated.
"(But) after I realized that it wasn't on, after I had the ball, I probably should have kicked it."