Well, that was fun as always :). And let me tell you, I made some chili for the party that was damn good and set speed records in the efficiency in which it generated noxious fumes. We’re talking 90 minutes max.
I am going to have to toot my own horn for calling this puppy. I’d say that the two biggest factors here was the speed of the Bucs D and the preparation that Chucky had in place against his old foes. Sounds similiar to a few nuggets I mentioned ;).
One thing that did suprise me. The poor play of the Raiders big names. There were alot of drops between Rice, Brown and Garner in the first half that absolutely killed any chance they had to stay in it. Also Gannon got happy feet a few times and flat out missed some reads. On the first INT the deep corner route was wide open as both the corner and nickelback broke hard on the flat. He threw to the flat and had it picked instead of at least a 35 yard recption.
Hats off to Pittman, the guy really stepped up. I didn’t see that coming. Anyone else just tickled that the Bucs managed to win with virtually no help from Meshawn? Would have made it much more bittersweet if this clown had had a big day allowing him to spout off even more than usual. Oh and did you notice that his media boycott lasted all of 96 hours? What was the over/under for that one?
Callahan must not have watched the same game as the rest of us, but we can always fill him in on it from the play-by-play. For instance, while the Raiders’ 3rd-down conversions looked respectable at game’s end, most of that happened after TB had gone up by 34-3.
On their way to 34-3, the TB defense held Gannon to a 2-of-10 3rd-down mark. And most of those were short-to-medium, too: five of them (on which he went 1-for-5 with an INT) were 3rd-and-2s or 3rd-and-4s; another three were with 6-7 yards needed. The longest was a 3rd-and-11.
Most offenses, against most defenses, would put up pretty good 3rd-down statistics at those distances. But MVP QB Gannon didn’t; he was absolutely stuffed all day by the TB defense, as were his receivers. That was a remarkable effort by the TB defense; there ain’t no way around it.
The offense has been mentioned already, but I’d like to put in a good word for the Bucs’ special teams, who had a good night too, aside from Tupa’s two big goofs. The coverage on returns of both kickoffs and punts was excellent, and with wickedly hard hitting. The open-field tackles the Bucs made on both defense and kickoff coverage were a sight to behold. Even the punt return that sort of got away from them, where the Raiders’ return team set up a nice wall of blockers, and the return man turned the corner, only netted about 16 yards.
I can understand “uncatchable” being so purely a judgment call, but what I don’t understand is why the “forced out” couldn’t be as reviewable as fumbles or any other call that is often “close.” If it’s so close you can’t clearly determine that the guy would have come down in bounds if not shoved forcefully out of bounds, then you don’t overturn the call. The fact that it can often be so close doesn’t, IMO, render it “unreviewable.” It’s often extremely close as to whether a guy was down before the ball came out. It’s often extremely close as to whether the guy had possession before going out of bounds. Both of those are reviewable and don’t seem, to me, to be any less judgment calls than whether the guy was forced out.
Don’t get me wrong… I love to see the Raiders get screwed and these two calls didn’t ultimately have any impact on the outcome as the game was over already anyway.
This is something I thought I’d never live to see. I also thought I’d never live to see the Anaheim Angels win the World Series, so this has been a great sports season for me!
