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| Tuesday, October 10 By John Clayton ESPN.com | |||
| MINNEAPOLIS -- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' celebrated 'Pirate Ship' is sinking. The team has lost three
games in a row. The Bucs trail the Minnesota Vikings by two-and-a-half games.
And Shaun King keeps trying to throw the damn ball to Keyshawn Johnson, but
bad things are happening. Monday night's 30-23 loss to the Vikings proved
that being different didn't even help.
Coach Tony Dungy finally opened up his offense. King often lined up with
three receivers at his disposal. There was more Warrick Dunn and less
Mike Allstott.
"They opened their mouths a little bit by saying that they were going to
pass," Vikings safety Orlando Thomas said. "When we didn't see Mike in
there early, we knew it was going to be wide open."
King completed 26 of 40 passes for 295 yards and moved the ball up and down
the field on the Vikings defense. Eleven times he connected with Jacquez
Green. As for Keyshawn, there was a little more adventure involved there.
Two plays into the game, Thomas stripped the ball from Johnson's hands -- the
second fumble in as many weeks for a receiver who said he's never fumbled
before this season. Quarterback Daunte Culpepper ran for a 27-yard
touchdown on the next play and the Vikings led, 7-0, a mere 24 seconds into the
game.
Johnson finished with five catches for 71 yards but a big one slipped out of his
hands and out of bounds at the Vikings 6-yard line with 14 seconds left.
"We're not making the crucial plays and that's the difference between
winning and losing when you play against good teams," Dungy said. "We have
not made them so we are going to have to go to work, come out of this bye
and get ourselves in the mind set that we start to make them."
This isn't your typical Bucs. Mental mistakes are plentiful. King, playing
his best game of the season and maybe his career, was at the Vikings 2 with
a third down in the final seconds of the third quarter. The Bucs trailed,
20-13, and were hoping for the tie.
Tight end Patrick Hape made a false start, but the play went on. King was
sacked, but he arose and tossed the football in frustration in the face of
Vikings defensive tackle Tony Williams. That resulted in a 15-yard penalty
that killed the potential touchdown drive and forced the Bucs to settle for a field
goal.
"He felt he got hit late on the play before and they didn't call it,"
Dungy explained. "Then they blew the whistle and he stops playing and they
threw him down again. He's frustrated but you can't throw the ball at
people. That's the bottom line. We're making mistakes when you just can't
make them."
Other mistakes were critical. For whatever reason, the Bucs can't seem to
convert a short-yardage play consistently, regardless of who they try at quarterback. During a critical part of the fourth quarter, trailing 27-23,
the Bucs turned to their fullback Alstott, who rolled right and threw a pass 30 yards to his left.
The receiver was rookie tight end Todd Yoder, who looked worse than a
rookie. He could have passed for a clumsy person falling backward while hailing a cab. The ball sailed several yards over his head for an incompletion.
"It was a great call," Thomas said. "We got a lot of pressure. We had a
lot of hands in Allstott's face to force him to make a bad throw."
Offensive coordinator Les Steckel dug into his bag of tricks two more
times. In a desperation drive in the final seconds, King fired a pass to
Alstott, who flipped it back to Dunn on a hook-and-ladder for a 26-yard gain. On
the last play, King almost got a Hail Mary pass completed to Green but
officials ruled him down in the end zone.
"We could have played that a little better on defense because only two
guys jumped up," Thomas said of the Vikings deep coverage on the last play
of the game.
Despite their third straight loss, the Bucs aren't hitting the panic button. They
have 10 days off before playing a Thursday night home game against Detroit.
"We got to set the ship right," defensive tackle Warren Sapp said. "We
need to go and get some guys healthy and get some nicks out of the way. We
need to work on our fundamentals. What's breaking down right now is killing
us."
Sapp sees the division title slipping out of his team's grasp. "We're just
not playing well enough to win," Sapp said. "But we've still got a very
confident ballclub."
John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. | ALSO SEE
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