Teams The Eagles Don't Play: Tampa Bay Bucs

The Tampa Bay Bucs are as hot as their rookie RB right now. Not suprisingly they are becoming a darling of the national columnist and talking head alike. The question is: are they a legit threat to take down the Eagles and make the second Super Bowl appearence of the Jon Gruden era, or have they started at a sprint just to finish at a walk.
Bill Simmons recognized recently that the folks over at Footballoutsiders were the only preseason publication to give the Bucs a nog as a contender, and even they hedged by basically saying, "Uh, we're not sure how the numbers came out this way, maybe our Excel is broke". Credit where it's due, they were all over this telling stat: Brian Griese led the NFL last season with a resounding 69.3% completion percentage (look it up). In Gruden's West Coast offense built around quick drops and intelligent reads, Griese has excelled. The other stat that Griese would like to see repeated more often: he was ninth in the league in YPA. Skeptics would say that's all completion percentage. Sure, only Jake Plummer completed less than 60% of his passes and broke the top 10-YPA, but for a guy with a rep for a weak arm ninth's commands alittle respect. It doesn't hurt to chuck it to two veteran wideouts and a second year playmaker who plays like it's his tenth either. Not to mention handing the ball to the leading rusher in football almost two out of three plays.
The other thing people forgot about Tampa is that this season is close to the last ride of three great players who made the pewter-D feared for years: Simeon Rice (31), Derrick Brooks (32), and Ronde Barber (30). These guys can still flat out play, and the front office quietly filled in some holes left by John Lynch and Warren Sapp nicely. The D is tied for the NFC lead with 9 takeaways so far.
Anyone who reads all that can see the potential, and anyone who reads the box scores might say the potential is being realized. Looking at the Bucs last game might give alittle insight into how big the seperation between this team and the NFC's 1-2 teams really is. The Bucs went into Lambeau and came out winners, some would say that's all you should ask for. But the game showed some stregths and weaknesses that will be interesting to watch as the season develops. The Bucs dominated the ground game, and so the time of possession, outgaining the Pack on the ground 161 - 75 and holding the ball for 34:22 (that's right, they did that to the Packers at Lambeau. Haven't seen numbers like that often.) They scored two TD's on smart plays by Griese, one where he picked on a rookie CB and one where Joey Galloway easily found a seam in the Packers zone coverage.
Despite the disparity on the ground and a couple nice plays in the red zone, the Bucs won in the end because of a missed extra point. You might be asking how the game could be so close when it appears the Bucs dominated in most phases of the game. The answer is simply the long ball: Favre throws it and Griese doesn't. Robert Ferguson blew by a corner who didn't get safety help for the Pack's first TD, a 37 yarder, and the Pack's top three wideouts averaged 24.5, 18.5, and 17 yds per catch respectively, while Clayton and Hilliard were held under ten.