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Michelle Kaufman, The St.Petersburg Times, published 26 December 1989
'Twas the chilly eve before Christmas and all through the home locker room, frustrated creatures were stirring after more December doom. The Buccaneers' street clothes were hung in their lockers with care, in hopes that football's St. Nicholas soon would be there. They've been awaiting his arrival for years and years, but after Sunday's 31-22 loss to Pittsburgh, there were more private tears.
Because, once again, with eyes in their kerchiefs and Coach Ray Perkins in more than one cap, the Buccaneers will just settle down for another long winter's nap. “If I had one Christmas wish for this team, it would be at least one more game,” said center Randy Grimes. “We didn't want to end the year like this.”
The Bucs, 5-11 for the second consecutive season, lost their fourth game in a row Sunday in front of the 29,690 fans who chose to brave the 39-degree temperature at kickoff with a wind chill in the low teens. It was the fourth time in the past five seasons the Bucs ended the year with a losing skid of at least four. It also marked the seventh time in 14 seasons Tampa Bay has finished all alone in last place in its division. The Bucs have shared last two other times.
Coach Ray Perkins said: “I'm very disappointed in this year. I can't hide that. It's the toughest year I've had in football. But we'll keep on pushing, and we'll come back with renewed vigor.”
Buccaneers players seemed relieved to get the season over with. “It's been a long, frustrating year,” said defensive end Reuben Davis. “I don't know if I could go on like this. I'm going to take a long rest, and come back remembering all the frustration. When I'm lifting weight, and it feels heavy, I'll think back on the fourth quarter when I couldn't do this or that. Maybe we'll all be a little angry going into next year. We should be.”
Tackle Rob Taylor said he was happy to put the year behind him. “Now we have a clean slate and we can start all over again. It's been frustrating because our record makes it look like we made no strides at all, but we know we did.”
Quarterback Joe Ferguson, who started in place of injured Vinny Testaverde, said the Bucs won't win until several players develop a more mature attitude toward the game. “This team has the talent to do it, the question is, will they do it?” said Ferguson, who was 14-of-21 for 244 yards and two touchdowns. “They need to accept the fact that they're professionals and they have to play as well as they can every week. They have to realize that this is a job. It's not just a game anymore. Several players still need to learn that. It's all part of winning.”
If one judged by statistics alone, the Buccaneers won Sunday's game. They had more first downs (19 to 14), more yards (321 to 316), six fewer penalties and two fewer turnovers. But the game wasn't close at all. In fact, the score was 31-13 with five minutes remaining. A safety by Sherman Cocroft and a 39-yard touchdown reception by Mark Carrier in the closing minutes made the score respectable.
Carrier's touchdown was his second of the day, and his ninth of the season. He had a 7-yarder in the first quarter to tie the game 7-7. Pittsburgh had taken an early lead on a 1-yard run by rookie Tim Worley, after Rod Woodson returned the opening kickoff 72 yards to the Buccaneers' 17-yard line.
By the end of the afternoon Carrier had six catches for 101 yards, his ninth 100-yard game of the season. The sixth catch brought his 1989 total to 86, which broke the previous team record set by James Wilder in 1984. “Our game plan wasn't to get me the record, but on the second-to-last drive, Joe (Ferguson) came up to me in the huddle and asked how many I needed for the record,” Carrier said. “At that point, I needed three more.”
His final catch of the season, a 13-yarder, came on the final play of the game. Besides Carrier, the only other bright Buccaneers' spots were big defensive plays. Bobby Futrell had his first interception of the year, setting up a 45-yard field goal by Donald Igwebuike. Ricky Reynolds also had an interception, and Eugene Marve caused and recovered a fumble.
There were times, however, when the Bucs' defense looked horrid. The two most noticeable breakdowns were on touchdown passes of 79 and 12 yards to Louis Lipps. By halftime the Steelers had moved ahead 24-10. “It would have been nice if we'd have won, but I just hope each guy can go home and say he played as hard as he could,” said tackle Paul Gruber. “I know that was my personal goal for the game.”
While the rest of the Tampa Bay area may think the Bucs don't have what it takes to win, Perkins and the players seem to believe they do. “We're not a rebuilding team anymore,”said Carrier. “The nucleus of the team is here. It's a matter of maturing. Even though we ended up with the same record, it's almost like night and day between this year and last year. We only played poorly two games this year. It's hard to see encouraging signs when you only have five wins, but we have to look for them.”
Perkins said: “The brightest thing, looking back on the year, is that we developed an attitude of not giving up and playing for 60 minutes. The previous two years, we didn't deserve any kind of tag.”
Each of the players will spend the off-season trying to figure out what went wrong. Safety Mark Robinson said they may never know. “Football is funny,” he said. “It's an oblong ball. It bounces left. It bounces right. It's hard to catch and it's hard to control. All I know is one thing - losing gets old. I come from a winning program at Penn State, and I haven't gotten used to losing. It hurts. Especially when you know you're better than you showed.”
Next year won't come soon enough for those frustrated creatures.
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