Oh please, the RAIDERS will destroy the pathetic Bucs. The originals will once again prove superior to the pretenders.
Five things that will happen on Sunday
- DE Simeon Rice will try and run around Raider T Kennedy and get into the Raiders backfield by Tuesday.
- The Seabass will spike Gruden’s gatorade with GHB and cause Chucky to leap into the black hole and go ballistic on the 156 Darth Vaders in there. 15 yards on the Bucs.
- John Lynch will be the first NFL player to actually break a WR in half (and help him up afterwards).
- Tabloid reporter finds fountain of youth in Jerry Rice’s locker.
- Raiders will run Gardner up the middle and jump out to an early lead. Then they will pass 47 times in a row and lose the game. Bucs 24 - Raiders 21.
- Simeon Rice, lines up on the opposite side from Kennedy, so he will have to run around Sims (if I’m not mistaken), which is not nearly as long a trip. Expect Greg Spires to be the poor schmoe that has to taken on Lincoln “mountain of a man” Kennedy.
- I hear he actually has a portrait in their that is aging.
- I can agree with this one!
A great matchup, if only for the ‘Gruden vs. His Old Team’ storyline. BTW, as a resident of San Diego, I think it’s hilarious that the city finds itself welcoming the Silver and Black Horde.
3) John Lynch will be the first NFL player to actually break a WR in half (and help him up afterwards).
ROTF… If I had worked in a stricter office enviornment I would have just gotten into trouble.
There will be field goals and a couple of fumbles lost and an interception by both teams.
Tampa Bay 27
Oakland 20
And maybe Al Davis will finally give up and retire.
The Raiders by 42.
Well maybe 7.
I am rooting for the Bucks but I’m not sure how they will fend against so much passing. But I’m not a bandwagon jumper, I just never liked the raiders. I was pumped hoping the Jets would shut them down a few weeks ago.
Well well well, I see a vast majority of the people here picking the Bucs to win. That’s good. I’m glad you all have come to your senses.
As this debate should not be based on the classiness of certain players coughKeyshawncough because many of them have none coughRomanowskicough, I’ll base my decision simply on one thing:
The Bucs are gonna take that freakin’ trophy (and the rings too) not because that’s just what pirates do, but because when it comes down to it, we deserve it more.
We’ve been screwed out of a NFC championship once, knocked out of the playoffs too many times by the Eagles, underestimated by every single commentator and sports “expert” in the world, and even though 5 of our players are regular superstars at the Pro Bowl, they recieve very little air time and the respect they deserve, in comparison to other players on the team. I think you know of whom I speak. I hope I don’t need to cough it out for you again.
Couple that with the fact that I was born and raised in Tampa, my bedroom and half of my wardrobe is crimson red and pewter, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a Super Bowl Victory.
GO BUCS!!!
-foxy
Game Thoughts -
As I was prepping the sheet for our annual SB prediction pool (pick the coin flip, first team with a first down, longest run from scimmage, etc.), the first game was still on. I laid the over/under line at 44, and already decided I’d take the under. When Tampa won, I had to switch all the PHI’s for TB’s, but felt even more confident about my “under” pick. Then the line came out, and it was 44 (also my highschool number). Kismet? Hopefully.
The game? TB has a FANTASTIC defense and a GOOD-GREAT offense (look at Brad Johnson’s stats if you argue the semi-great offense rating). OAK has a GREAT-FANTASTIC offense and a GOOD defense, especially with Chuckie Woodson still hobbling. Defense wins championships, especially when you can control the game with a running back in a fullback’s body (Alstott).
Tampa will win this straight up. Getting the points only adds to the glory. TB 17 - OAK 10
Great bets:
Gannon under 252 yards passing
Alstott over 48 yards rushind
Alstott/Pittman over 67 yards rushing
Iffy bet:
Longest FG -
I think one of Seabass/MGram will line up for figgie over 50 and miss it. I’ll take the under on this but with little confidence.
I had been thinking half this week that we will have a Bucs kickoff return for a TD. This is crazy since the Bucs have only once, in the first preseason game this year, returned a kickoff for a TD. In the other 27 years, nada. But it was gnawing at me. Then on one of the sports shows this evening they mentioned that Oakland has given up the most yards on kick returns of any team this season. So maybe there’s something to my hunch. Might be a good bet if you can get long odds on it.
I am going for The Oakland Raiders, Silver and Black All The Way Baby. Still bummed that the Buccaneers beat the Eagles, so I am going for the Raiders.
In a suprising development, Paul Tagliabu is taken ill during the halftime show. Since Bud Seilig just happens to be nearby, Mr. Tagliabu asks his friend Mr Seilig to “look after things” while he goes go to the hospital.
Raiders 21, Bucs 21. Final.
So, after 26 years* of waiting, my Bucs finally make the Super Bowl. Number 1 offense against number 1 defense. A lot of people talking about how the Raiders might have just too many weapons (Gannon, Rice, Brown, Porter, Jolley, Garner), but then I think about another team that the Bucs have pretty much owned, or at least been able to shut down, from 1999-2002, the Rams, who in their day had Faulk, Bruce, Warner, Holt, Az-Hakim, Proehl, etc. Nobody could possibly shut them down. Of course the Bucs did. And don’t forget the Raiders defense, who have become quite good lately. Well, the Bucs offense was able to score 20 against a very good Eagles defense, better than the Raiders IMO, throw in another TD from special teams or the defense, and I have to go with the Bucs (big surprise). As I said here earlier, I think the Bucs will finally get a KO return TD, and I would not be be at all surprised to see the defense get a score, especially if the Bucs can build an early lead. The Raiders best chance is to just pound at the soft middle of the Bucs defense with their running game. If they come out and do that, instead of passing on every down, they could win.
Bucs 30 - Raiders 17
*Yeah, I know, technically it’s 27 years, but I didn’t move to Tampa until late spring 1977
Ok… a few random thoughts here as we get down to the last minute of this Bucs-fest.
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Storyline #1: Gruden knowing Oakland’s strategy, etc. I think the most telling thing here was John Lynch near the end of the first-half on the “Mic’d Up” thingy saying: “Every play they are running is a play we ran in practice.” Need anyone say more? Apparently Callahan wasn’t serious when he said during interviews this week that they had changed significantly since last year.
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Storyline #2: Number 1 Defense vs. Number 1 Offense. Well, so much for it being cliche that defense wins championships over offense. I wasn’t previously aware of the stats about the 9 times in the past that a top 3 offense had played a top 3 defense and the defense having won 8 of those 9 games. Make it 9 out of 10. Oh, and I can’t help this verbenabeast (in response to my prediction that the Bucs D/ST could score 2 touchdowns and I wouldn’t be surprised:
Guess you must be VERY surprised about now, huh? 
Of course it took until the last 2 minutes of the game for the second one… (and, on preview, the third one)
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Stupid Officials/Replay Rules. I know I shouldn’t find it funny when the Raiders get screwed by the officials and rules, and I don’t think the Raiders could blame the game on either call, but how funny is it that in the 4th quarter when the momentum may have shifted in favor of the Raiders there are 2 bad calls that are both unreviewable? That second one, where they said the rules don’t allow review of whether a receiver is forced out is just a plain dumb rule, FTR.
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The “2 Point” Controversy. I’ve never understood going for 2 when the game is a 20 point game. Again, it probably didn’t change the outcome, but after 3 straight missed 2 point conversions the Raiders are left being down 13 instead of 10. I don’t know about anyone else, but with 5 minutes left in the game I’d much rather be in a position where I need a TD and a field goal than needing 2 TDs… and it would probably significantly alter the urgency of the offense, too.
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The commercials. Somehow I can’t remember many of them, especially from the second half. I loved the Bud one early on with the zebra in the replay booth, though.
So… where’s all the game chat? I saw a couple “halftime” threads and a couple “commercials” threads in CS, but nothing about the actual game?
Congrats Bucs. Who could have predicted the Bucs would score almost 50 points?
Bucs Defence 21 - Oakland Offence 15
That answers that question.
If someone wants to give me a 28 point spread, I’ll take Oakland.
While I agree the officiating was poor (hell, you saw that coming at the coin-flip mixup), rules like “uncatchable” and “forced out” are judgment calls. Yes, he was clearly “forced out” but how could you challenge a ref’s judgement? (Yes, this was an obvious f**k up by the ref, but because it generally is a close situation the ref has to determine, in “real time” if the guy would’ve come down in bounds) And why did the Raiders bother to try? The worst call of the game was the “fumble” call on Stecker’s return. For one, his entire body was down before the ball came out, two - Stecker and the ground were the only ones to touch the freakin’ ball…
Gazoo’s bets-
TB +4 (win)
Several others (losses) :smack:
uhhh… yup, I’m surprised. And dismayed. I did not beleive the bucs could pressure Gannon sending only 4 down linemen… I was wrong. Grats all Bucs Fans.
Man, that was sweet!
One of the things some of my other football junkie friends and I discussed earlier in the week was if the Raiders had actually faced a strong defense all season. Maybe, just maybe in the Broncos, but certainly not an overpowering one. Similar with Miami, and they got destroyed.
One thing I found peculiar was in a postgame interview Callahan was asked about the Bucs defense. The condensed version of his answer “nothing special”. Same question about Bucs team speed, again “nothing special”. Apparently the Raiders just lost because they didn’t play “their game”. I’m sorry Bill, but you guys your offense was smacked down in a serious way by a superior defense. Gannon wasn’t on his game because he was sacked early and often. Charlie Garner was stuffed at the line and became a non-factor. At least a couple of the picks were made because against a normal, slower, defense the defender wouldn’t have gotten there. Simeon Rice beat Sims like a drum a couple of times, basically with quickness. And both Sapp and Spires were able to drive Kennedy backwards. Remember that F = M * V? Smaller guys can beat bigger guys when they’re much bigger. Even the couple of scores that did come later, both of which were on very pretty TDs, were when the Bucs had started to soften up and show fewer blitz packages, as they protected a huge lead. To suggest anything else is just plain stupid or arrogant.
And while I’m on a roll, I want to give a big shout out to the Bucs offensive line. In all of the end of the game hype about the D, they left out the fact that the line gave up ZERO sacks and helped Pittman get his first 100+ yard game of the season. Not that I don’t have a lot of love left over for the boys on defense. The only guy who didn’t have a really impressive outing for the Bucs was Tom Tupa, who actually punted the ball low into the onrushing Raiders (more so than a normal block), and later botched the hold on a decent snap for that failed field goal.