TAMPA, Fla. -- During the week of hyperbole leading up to Sunday's showdown here between the Tampa Bay Bucs and the Atlanta Falcons, seven long days of rhetoric and riot chest-thumping, everyone sensed that the football world had better be ready for a quarterback coming-out party.

No one, however, figured that quarterback would be Brad Johnson.

But in a critical NFC South matchup, and with counterpart Michael Vick the player most national media types hustled here to see, Johnson stole the show from the Falcons second-year veteran. And because of his brilliance, Tampa Bay will likely steal off with the division championship, and quite possibly the homefield advantage in the NFC bracket of the playoffs.

	“	He was, the key all day long. You could see in his eyes he was fired up about this (game). He had the look, you know, and it was pretty obvious he was ready to play. There were a lot of people watching this game today. They saw a great quarterback, just not the one they thought that they were going to see. Everyone knew where the spotlight was supposed to be today. I guess Brad didn't get the memo, though, huh? ”
		— Keenan McCardell, Bucs wide receiver

The quarterback no one spoke of before the game garnered plenty of kudos after the Bucs' 34-10 rout of the upstart Falcons. In fact, in a contest where the Tampa Bay defense dominated the action, even Bucs defenders found time to acknowledge Johnson's role in making their jobs much easier.

"For us to score first, for Brad and the offense to put up that many points against a defense that had been playing well from what I understand, that was huge," said defensive tackle Anthony McFarland. "We're accustomed to playing some close games around here. Today we could cut loose. Playing with a lead, man, that's the way to do it."

In continuing a current hot streak, Johnson completed 23 of 31 passes for 276 yards, with four touchdown passes, no interceptions and a quarterback rating of 140.6. Over the last five games, four of them victories, Johnson has thrown 15 touchdown passes and just one interception.

Tampa Bay still invites criticism for not throwing the ball vertically upfield very often, and that was the case again Sunday, but it was hard to find fault with an intermediate passing game that has lately become the centerpiece of a Bucs offense that doesn't run the ball very effectively. Tampa Bay finished with 150 rushing yards Sunday, but that total was misleading, since 113 of those yards came after the Bucs had stormed to a 21-3 halftime lead.

Early in the game, when tailback Michael Pittman again struggled to locate even the few holes available to him and fullback Mike Alstott wasn't able to dent the Atlanta defense, it was the passing game that supplied a spark.

Johnson completed all six passes, for 55 yards, on a late first-quarter drive that culminated in the game's first touchdown. The important score, crucial because the Bucs are hardly a catch-up outfit, came on a 10-yard pass to Joe Jurevicius, the veteran wide receiver who made a superb catch against the tight coverage of Falcons inside linebacker Keith Brooking.

The two hooked up again for a 13-yard touchdown pass in the second period and Johnson also threw a pair of scoring passes to Keenan McCardell, one for 14 yards and the other for 27 yards. A rather amazing statistic: On just one occasion in the lopsided victory did the uncannily accurate Johnson toss consecutive incompletions.

He found an unlikely accomplice in Jurevicius, the fifth-year veteran signed as an unrestricted free agent from the New York Giants this spring, but who entered Sunday with just 25 receptions for 283 yards and two touchdowns.

Working against Atlanta cornerbacks who could not measure up to his size (6-foot-5, 230 pounds), and especially exploiting Ray Buchanan on several key third-down plays, Jurevicius finished with eight catches for 100 yards. The receptions tied a career high and the yardage established a personal best for the former Penn State standout.

Notable is that all eight Jurevicius receptions resulted in either first downs or touchdowns. Five of them converted third-down situations.

"The matchups just seemed to keep going my way," said Jurevicius, who usually worked out of the slot. "And even if I had just an inch of separation, Brad put the ball there, every time."

It was, for sure, a huge day for Johnson, who is often maligned for a lack of arm strength and dearth of mobility, but who now has a franchise-record 22 touchdown passes and just six interceptions in 2002. Johnson looks almost frail at times, and his injury history suggests he rarely lasts a season minus some ailment, but the Bucs offense is on his shoulders right now.

At least on the offensive side, he is as essential to his team, as Vick is to the Falcons this season. Yet it was Vick, and not Johnson, who generated all of the interest last week. On this day, though, Vick fell well shy of registering his promised "best game ever." And Johnson raised the level of his play to match the significance of the NFC South matchup.

In characteristic fashion, Johnson's longest completion of the afternoon was to a running back, a 42-yarder to Pittman, who beat Keith Brooking to the inside and up the middle of the field. And typically, as well, Johnson passed around the plaudits the same way he distributed the ball on a day when he had seven different receivers.

"The receivers played great and the line was terrific," said Johnson, sacked just once, when he tripped in his backpedal and was tagged down by Falcons defensive end Patrick Kerney. "And when we needed the running game to take time off the clock, over the second half, it was there."

Queried about the hoopla surrounding Vick, the Bucs quarterback suggested it is well-deserved, but noted that the Atlanta star is going to garner attention because of his all-purpose play-making abilities. Vick, of course, has been timed in under 4.3 seconds for 40 yards. In 11 seasons, Johnson has rushed for 40 yards total only three times.

That documented lack of footspeed was hardly a factor on Sunday, though, as Johnson dominated the tete-a-tete matchup at his position. In a contest in which first place was on the line, he easily outplayed Vick, and also maybe put himself at least on the fringes of the most valuable player race.

"He was," said McCardell, "the key all day long. You could see in his eyes he was fired up about this (game). He had the look, you know, and it was pretty obvious he was ready to play. There were a lot of people watching this game today. They saw a great quarterback, just not the one they thought that they were going to see. Everyone knew where the spotlight was supposed to be today. I guess Brad didn't get the memo, though, huh?"

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.