Buccaneers are Barryed
Rick Stroud, The St.Petersburg Times, published 8 November 1993

Don't ask the Tampa Bay Buccaneers if they know why something is terribly, terribly wrong with their offense, because right now they're drawing a blank. Nothing came easy to the Bucs against the Detroit Lions Sunday. Nothing at all. In fact, they lost 23 to nothing.

Detroit running back Barry Sanders, who was really something, rushed for 187 yards, and the Lions pressured Tampa Bay into its worst offensive game of the season in handing the Bucs their second shutout in four games. Playing without leading rusher Reggie Cobb, the Bucs were held to a season-low 146 total yards, including just 44 on the ground.

But don't think it was a thrill to score nil for the Buccaneers. "It's terrible. It's a terrible feeling," Bucs center Tony Mayberry said. "That's your job to score points and we didn't do our job. You can make all the excuses in the world, that Reggie wasn't here or whatever. It comes down to that you didn't do your job. Our job is to score, to control the ball and keep the defense off the field. We were oh-for-three."

The Bucs hardly resembled the team that came from behind to beat the Lions 27-10 last month in performance or personnel. In addition to missing Cobb, the Bucs also were playing without starting nose tackle Mark Wheeler (knee) and linebacker Demetrius DuBose (knee). Bucs quarterback Craig Erickson, fresh off a career-best 300-yard, four-touchdown passing performance at Atlanta, went back in the tank against the Lions. He struggled to complete 13-of-22 passes for 122 yards and was intercepted once. But in Erickson's defense, the Lions' defense sacked him three times and pressured him on nearly every attempt.

In fact, the only thing right with Erickson is that he scrambled twice for 25 yards. But that just served to note what was wrong with the Bucs' running game because their knee-braced quarterback finished the game as their leading rusher. With Cobb out, running backs Gary Anderson, Mazio Royster and Vince Workman combined to rush 12 times for just 19 yards. "You always miss Reggie Cobb," coach Sam Wyche said. "He's our starting back. He's a top back in this league and so you're going to miss that sort of punch."

Most of the time Sunday, the Bucs were beating themselves. They were penalized six times for 35 yards, but three of those infractions came on third or fourth down and killed promising drives. Tampa Bay started with a whimper Sunday and got worse. On seven of their first nine possessions, the Bucs went three-and-out. Detroit dominated the first half time of possession behind the running of Sanders, holding the ball about eight minutes more than the Bucs.

But despite the Lions' dominance, they had only two field goals by Jason Hanson and a 6-0 lead at halftime to show for it despite being 12 1/2 point favorites. "We went into halftime actually thinking we were winning that ballgame in terms of what the expectations of the game was, that somehow this was supposed to be an easy victory for the Detroit Lions and suddenly they found themselves in a dogfight," Wyche said.

But the Lions padded their lead to 13-0 early in the third quarter on Rodney Peete's 9-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw. Erickson then mounted the Bucs only serious comeback attempt on guile and guts, scrambling for one first down and nearly another to give Tampa Bay life facing a fourth-and-1 at midfield. But what happened next typified the team's afternoon.

Wyche wanted the referees to order a measurement, and when they wouldn't oblige, Erickson went to the line without a play and tried to draw the Lions offside before calling a timeout. When play resumed, Bucs tackle Paul Gruber jumped the snap count and the penalty forced them to punt. After that, Sanders simply took over, running around, between, through and under defenders. Erickson was intercepted by linebacker Pat Swilling after his arm was hit by George Jamison, and Sanders carried three times for 34 yards to set up Derrick Moore's 1-yard TD plunge. "I don't like the way we played the fourth quarter," Bucs defensive coordinator Floyd Peters said. "We fought hard, but some days you have to win 7-6. Some games are 18-17 and 14-13.

That last quarter, we just went through the motions. If we'd of played as hard as we did the first three quarters, we could've made it a game all the way. The first three quarters we played like men. But we have to fight down to the bitter end - 100 percent for the whole game."

If there was an interesting subplot, it was the debate Erickson won with Wyche on the sideline. With the game decided late in the fourth quarter, Wyche wanted to pull his starting quarterback and get a look at new backup Casey Weldon. But given his poor performance, Erickson apparently didn't want to send the wrong message to his offense. "I told Craig we're going to try to put it down the field one time. If we get it going, fine. If not, we're going to put Casey in the ballgame," Wyche said. "Craig just basically debated it with me - to put it politely - `Don't take me out of this ballgame here. I don't want this team thinking we've conceded this game.' "

Erickson wanted to keep his conversation with Wyche private. "I don't want to make a big deal of this," Erickson said. "I just think it's something where it's late in the game and you can look into it so many different ways, especially with the performance we had. Obviously, I wanted to stay in the football game and take the team down there."

It might have been a selfish gesture by Erickson, but there was nothing doing. The Bucs left the big goose egg on the board. Their effort was pointless. Detroit settled an old score and the Bucs couldn't score at all. "How do you go from 31 (points) to nothing?" Mayberry said. "You know what I'm saying?"