Tampa, Florida					Thursday, September 09, 2010

The Buccaneer News Is Good, Bad and a Little Sad These Days
Sunday, December 14, 2003
TAMPA—This weekend past a year ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 10-3 and a surprise of the National Football League went to a cold Detroit and on a 38-yard field goal with about three minutes left in the important game beat the Lions 23-20 and improved record to 11-3. My! The Bucs new coach Jon Gruden had somehow put together a Buccaneer team that moved on unflinchingly to that astounding 11-3 record, went on the get better and better and in climax won the 2003 Super Bowl at San Diego with a slam of Oakland 48-21. Now, this next mid-December a year later this second Gruden Buc team beat a struggling Houston 16-3 in the Tampa home, Raymond James Stadium, to pull event at 7-7 this season later. The defending champion Bucs had to win or have no shot at the NFL playoffs. Well, they did and still have a mathematical chance to make the playoffs. But, so much has to happen in their favor, bet here is they will not make it. And if the Bucs do not, most of them will be kicking themselves all winter and spring for—despite the injuries, flops of some players and infighting between Gruden and General Manager Rich McKay—this 2003 team lost at least four games it should have won. In fact, that 16-3 win over Houston turned up much of the same shortcomings of other games this year, but Houston was less effective than even these Bucs Sunday—not enough offense, not much speed, a questionable kicking game, and a lack of effectiveness near the enemy goal. Example: Place-kicker Martin Gramatica, whose FG a year ago won at Detroit late in the game, has been in a funk lately and hit three of five Sunday. Example: Third and short for the Bucs this year I still too often see in that failure an unfulfilled challenge. Example of that example: A first down at the Houston eight yard line did not produce a touchdown. Truly, as Coach Gruden has said repeatedly to me, “this is simply not the team we had last year.’’ I say, this is not just the team of last year, with injuries a part of it, with a lack of offense another, with lack of leadership on offense a big part of it. But, I add, this team has won seven games and is 7-7 and not far, far worse, because it still has a wonderful defense built on an aggressive front four that seems to get better and deeper, and star studs behind them like linebacker Derrick Brooks, corner Ronde Barber and safety John Lynch. And, this win over Houston Sunday produced five quarterback sacks and came about with All-Pro tackle Warren Sapp sidelined with a bum foot. Emerging as perhaps a future offensive star may be running back Thomas Jones. Jones is a quick-starting running back the Bucs got from Arizona for a wideout named Marquis Walker a year ago who was ineffective at Tampa as Jones had been in Arizona with the Cardinals. Jones just gets better in a role Gruden desperately needs someone to get great. Gruden has thrust him into that running back breech and he is working out. He had an 18-yard touchdown run against Houston Sunday and was a workhorse with more than 100 yards gained. With these Bucs 7-7, not going far, as I see it, this is check them out time, and Gruden is doing that with RB Jones. Problem is, he can’t do it with backup quarterbacks Shaun King and/or rookie Chris Simms, son of Phil. Starter Brad Johnson	is not All-World, but he big, loyal, reliable and experienced and if he doesn’t play now at his best, the Bucs have no shot to win these last two games for a reputation-saving 9-7 record. Johnson also has been helped, as has the Bucs overall, because the Bucs went after and got wideout Keenan McCardell. Fine receiver, McCardell. Fine run-after-the catch receiver, McCardell. Fine man, McCardell. But, it has not been the play of the Bucs this year, not the off-season after winning a Super Bowl, but getting most attention lately has been the decision to sit down and out receiver Keyshawn Johnson, a California boy who did not care for Gruden nor this part of Florida, and the announcement last week that GM Rich McKay was leaving the Bucs for other opportunities, likely Atlanta and the struggling Falcons there. Ironically, this week after McKay leaves the Bucs, the Falcons come to Tampa to play the Bucs. Should be fun. Of interest, McKay brought Keyshawn Johnson to Tampa four seasons ago from the New York Jets a high price of two first round draft picks. On the field, well, put it this way—some of us do not believe the Bucs would have made to the Super Bowl in 2003 without Keyshawn. But, he and Coach Gruden never hit if off. Thus, the decision to summarily to simply cut him two weeks ago, just sit him down. Powerful decision, that, but that is Gruden. No, he has no regrets. Fox Network quickly picked Johnson up as a commentator, for better or worse, or both, which is most likely. McKay is the son of John, the first Buc coach. He is a fine young man the NFL admires and made co-chairman of its competition committee, a high spot in that pecking order. He will have a fine and successful future in the NFL, in the administrative, but not with the Bucs. Gruden was not the choice GM McKay, but of the Buc owning Malcolm Glazer Family, Buc owners. McKay and Gruden are about the same age, have about the same sized egos. Gruden asked for players McKay did not like. In the end, Gruden had the trump hand, including the Glazer ace. It is better for both and probably for the Bucs that the split came. Interestingly, the Falcons and Bucs are in the same NFC-South Division and will play each other twice each year. In a conversation with Coach Gruden after the McKay departure, before his win over Houston, I noted that however the Bucs did on the field, win or lose, it would be he, Gruden the Coach, who would be held accountable. He is the coach. A loss for the media with Rich McKay’s departure was his appreciation of the press, the media’s job, and of Buc history. For, he came here with his dad from Southern California in 1975. And he has loved being here, as Jesuit scholar and football quarterback and golfer who roamed the sidelines when his dad ran that precious domain as the first Buc head coach. He went on to education and golf at Princeton, a law degree and in time, to this future in the business of football. No, Gruden won’t be the general manager. He only wants to coach the players he thinks he can coach to championships, with a general manager who will get for him the players he wants and needs, such as those new ones who helped him beat Houston Sunday in Tampa and stay in the NFL playoff chase, which some say they remain, these champs of mass destruction last year. ##
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