Bears penalize Bucs again, 21-20 The St.Petersburg Times, published 9 September 1991 The Tampa Bay Buccaneers showed a lot more fight Sunday against the Chicago Bears, all right. Their punchless offense came to life behind the running of Gary Anderson. Their quarterback, Vinny Testaverde, kept getting knocked down, dragging himself up, and being flattened again as the target of six sad sacks. They scratched and clawed and pushed and shoved the Bears all over the field - and that was after the whistle. But the thing to remember about Tampa Bay's 21-20 loss to Chicago in the home opener is not how the Bucs won a few more hearts, but that they completely lost their heads. espite some last-minute drama, the Bucs could not overcome 131 yards in penalties and fell victim to their own mistakes before 62,409 at Tampa Stadium. The defeat dropped Tampa Bay to 0-2 overall and another game behind the Central Division-leading Bears (2-0). Though it may not have cut the heart out of the Bucs' season, the loss Sunday did draw a little bad blood. "We were handicapped in some ways - any time you give 131 yards in penalties," Bucs head coach Richard Williamson said. "You can't give a gift to these people. That's a tremendous handicap you have to overcome. You cannot do that. We will not do that." The chief offender among Bucs defenders Sunday was linebacker Broderick Thomas, whose two unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties helped produce touchdowns for the Bears. Defensive end Dexter Manley committed a similar foul in the fourth quarter to sustain a Chicago drive. Despite all that, backup quarterback Chris Chandler came off the bench to replace an injured Testaverde and briefly rally the Bucs. On his first snap of the game, Chandler rolled right and tossed a 15-yard touchdown pass to wideout Bruce Hill to pull Tampa Bay to within 21-20 with 2 minutes, 54 seconds left. With Testaverde still staggered by a minor knee injury, Chandler had a final chance to resurrect the Bucs when the defense forced Chicago to punt with 2:12 remaining. But on fourth-and-1 from the Tampa Bay 20, Chandler's pass toward Hill was batted down at the line of scrimmage by linebacker John Roper. "We had a chance," Chandler said. "If we get Steve (Christie) down to the 35, with the wind at his back, who knows how far he can kick it?" But the Bucs placekicker was left stranded on the sidelines, and it was Thomas and Manley who got the boot from Williamson. Despite collecting more total yards than the Bears (257 to 247) and controlling time of possession (31:01 to 28:59), the Bucs lost in no small part by handing Chicago seven first downs by penalty. Bears head coach Mike Ditka said his team was fortunate to get so many chances. "You've got to realize that as much as the game of football is played with the heart, it's played with your head, too," Ditka said. "When you do foolish things, you don't hurt yourself as much as you jeopardize 47 other people and a coaching staff with mistakes like that." Thomas, the flamboyant Buc noted for his after-whistle bristles, lost his cool early Sunday. On the Bears' second drive of the game, Thomas kicked Chicago tackle Stan Thomas after Anthony Morgan gained 13 yards on a reverse to the linebacker's side. The penalty gave the Bears a first down at the Tampa Bay 24. Three plays later, Neal Anderson scored on a 12-yard run to leave the Bucs trailing 7-3. Thomas' antics took over again when he leveled Jerry Fontenot after the Bears lineman jumped offsides. "That's a gift," Williamson said. "You lose your poise, and you absolutely can't do that and play. All that does is take away what you do. It takes away from the team. It takes away from your performance. He knows that. He knows he shouldn't have done it. His nature has got to change. Anybody who's got that nature on this ballclub has got to change. It's hard enough in this game to fight your guts out and win; then you give them something like that. That attitude will change." Not much changed about the Bucs' inability to get the ball into the end zone. After Thomas stripped Neal Anderson of the ball on the game's third play to give his team a first down at the Chicago 29, the Bucs went nowhere. Christie was summoned to kick a 31-yard field goal to give Tampa Bay a 3-0 lead four minutes into the game, but it was an opportunity lost for the Bucs. Gary Anderson, the Tampa Bay tailback, shocked the Bears with a 64-yard touchdown run that featured five cutbacks before he reached the end zone. Anderson finished the game with 10 carries for 94 yards, but the lead he gave the Bucs was short-lived. Neal Anderson caught a 7-yard touchdown pass from Jim Harbaugh to start the second quarter, and the Bears quarterback went deep to wideout Wendell Davis for a 43-yard touchdown early in the second half. Not that the Bears didn't do their darnedest to give the game away. Chicago committed four turnovers, and only crossed midfield twice in the second half. But Testaverde, who also suffered a bruised shoulder, fumbled away a 15-play drive in the fourth quarter and later was forced to leave the game after a late hit by Bears lineman Tim Ryan. Testaverde wanted to re-enter the game on the next series, after Chandler's TD pass, but Williamson stuck with his backup. "I was disappointed," Testaverde said. "Those are the times you wish you were in there, when you've worked so hard all day. I know the defense had to be tired in the hot sun. The series before that, when I did get hurt, we moved the ball pretty good. I felt very comfortable we were going to win the game. I was going to give it a shot, unless somebody said otherwise, which they did. It's one of those things you try and hide, but sometimes it's better to let the guy go in that maybe can do a little better in that situation." With the Bucs out of timeouts and Chandler calling his own plays, he opted for a pass to Hill on fourth-and-1 that was batted down with 1:11 left. "I thought we had as good of a chance to make some short completion as running some type of draw," Chandler said. "You don't have a lot of options." Testaverde, who heard jeers most of the game, listened to cheers when he picked himself off the turf for the final time Sunday, as Chandler ran onto the field to replace him. "It doesn't bother me," Testaverde said of the negative reactions. "I expect it a little bit. It's part of the game. You're getting sacked, and I don't want to sound negative toward anyone on the team. You get up, you come back onto the field, and you're getting booed. I mean, what more can I do by myself? We can't let us losing play any mind games on us now. And it can do it very easily, especially for the guys who have been around here through a bunch of losing seasons. We need to be patient - but not too patient."