The visiting Giants played close to mistake-free football and ended the Buccaneers' season with a 24-14 victory at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.
Offense:
Earnest Graham ran well, but the Bucs' young offensive line failed to adequately protect quarterback Jeff Garcia, which led to offensive inconsistency. Though Garcia was only sacked once, he rarely had the luxury of throwing from a set position, even when the Bucs were moving the ball successfully. Joey Galloway, playing with an injured shoulder, wasn't much of a factor. Indeed, it could be said that the Bucs gave themselves a liability by throwing deep as it led to either incompletions or interceptions (2).
Defense:
The defense stuffed the Giants early, but once New York mixed in short and intermediate passes into its playcalling the Giants put together some good scoring drives. The loss of safety Tanard Jackson may have also played a role. No other safety on the Bucs' roster has his coverage ability.
The Giants got their lead with a couple of plays where the defense wasn't fooled but failed to make the play. On one, Ronde Barber showed blitz then dropped into coverage but failed to make the play on a hard-thrown pass by Eli Manning. On another, Derrick Brooks sniffed out a screen pass to Brandon Jacobs and tried to bat the pass away by reaching around Jacobs instead of tackling him as the ball arrived. Brooks whiffed on defensing the pass and Jacobs scored on the play. The television announcers made much of the Giants' playcalling keeping the Bucs off-balance. That may be, but those two plays were not good examples of it. In those two cases the Giants simply made the play despite not fooling the defense. That's one way to play winning football, of course.
Special Teams:
Unfortunately, the special teams continued their trend of at least one problem play per game in the latter half of the season. Though Josh Bidwell had a subpar day punting, the big breakdown was Michael Spurlock's fumble of the opening kickoff of the second half. The Giants recovered the ball and scored a field goal, going up 17-7.
Up Next:
Well, I'd like to say the Cowboys in Dallas but that task now falls to the New York Giants. For the Bucs, it's time to think of the 2008 draft and next year's season.
Summary:
This team outplayed the predictions of most (my friends say I predicted a 9-7 regular season; I honestly can't remember but I like to think I predicted 10 wins even though that would have been wrong). The team made some strides with its biggest weaknesses, those being the offensive and defensive lines. It looks like the Bucs made the right call in drafting Gaines Adams, who turned in a pretty good second half of the season, including a playoff sack of Eli Manning. The Bucs are missing one thing on defense: a defensive tackle who disrupts the offense 80% as well as Warren Sapp did it. Unknown Jovan Haye turned in a pretty good season, ending up near the top of the league in the number of tackles for a defensive tackle.
The team is in nice shape at linebacker and defensive back, but has a decision to make about Brian Kelly. Kelly might be the Bucs best cornerback when healthy, but he has had trouble staying healthy for the past three years.
Needs heading into the offseason:
1) disruptive defensive tackle
2) center to match the rest of the offensive line
3) game-breaking wideout to complement/replace Galloway
4) a quality cornerback (moves to #2 depending on what happens with Kelly)
5) a kick/punt returner
The Buccaneers have a nice amount of cap space to play with, so I expect at least one of the above needs to be addressed through free agency--though you never can tell how a free agent will work out. Gruden's success with Keyshawn Johnson, Keenan McCardell, Joe Jurevicius and Ike Hilliard make it a good bet that at least one free agent wide receiver will challenge for a starting role next season.
The Bucs may rely on draft picks to try to address the other needs.
As for coach Gruden, I think he established that this team is headed in the right direction. His hire in 2002 was intended to get the Bucs a Super Bowl win before the window of opportunity closed for a team on the path to salary cap trouble. He accomplished that.
After the Super Bowl win, the goal was to get the most out of the team during its transition. The results there were mixed, as the team was forced fill needs through free agency because of lost draft picks spent to secure Gruden. The few remaining draft picks were not used wisely, if retrospect is any indication. Fifth-round pick Jermaine Phillips in 2002 was a notable exception during those first three years.
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