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Bucs Are Too Giving On Road

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By ROY CUMMINGS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 15, 2007

TAMPA - The NFC South is still anyone's division. It's up for grabs, like a bouquet tossed by a bride at a wedding reception.

It might not be had the Bucs taken care of business on the road in the first half of the season.

Their road record is 1-3, worst among NFL division leaders. If the Bucs were one win better away from home, they would have a two-game lead and control the South as well as Gen. Sherman during his march to the sea.

As it is, the Bucs go back on the road this week - to the Atlanta that Sherman burned - needing to win just to keep Carolina and New Orleans from catching them and to keep the surging Falcons from taking a more prominent position in the race.

Bucs right tackle Jeremy Trueblood, a second-year pro wise beyond his years in the league, could only shake his head as he had the facts of the road laid out before him Wednesday.

"We just have to learn from what we've done wrong," he said.

That's the easy part. The answer to the Bucs' road woes is right there on the stat sheet, in the table that lists their number of takeaways and giveaways.

Overall, the Bucs have taken the ball away from their opponents 14 times while giving it up 11 times. On the road, though, they have taken it away four times while giving it up six times.

The bottom line: The Bucs are 1-1 when they've matched or bettered their opponent's turnover total on the road this year. They're 0-2 (losing at Detroit and Seattle) when they haven't.

"It's like we've done everything good on the road except protect the ball and get turnovers," linebacker Derrick Brooks said. "We've moved the ball on offense, and on defense we've come up with stops. But we don't win.

"If you lose the turnover battle at home, you have a better chance of overcoming it. When you don't win it on the road, you probably win one out of every 10 games. That's been the case for this team."

It was the case in Detroit because the Bucs also had a punt blocked and their defense couldn't stop the Lions from marching 93 yards for a late game-clinching score.

And it was the case in Seattle because the Bucs also settled for field goals instead of touchdowns on two early drives, and because they had trouble communicating.

Communication often is a problem on the road. In loud environments such as Seattle's Qwest Field and Indianapolis' RCA Dome, where the Bucs lost 33-14 to the Colts, communication is a real problem. Sunday's game will be at the Georgia Dome, but it might not be as noisy as usual because there still were plenty of tickets available Wednesday.

"That game in Indianapolis, they beat up on us early and the crowd got into it and it's just hard to hear the snap count and wait on the ball when that happens," running back Michael Pittman said. "The crowd is always a factor, so you've got to take the crowd out of the game.

"To do that, you have to establish the running game, control the clock and try to take a lead."

Falcons coach Bobby Petrino will attest to that. He's new to the league, having come from Louisville, but he knows the biggest key to winning on the road is to move the ball well and get a lead.

"Handling the crowd, executing your offense and not falling behind to the point where you have to throw the ball all the time, that's what makes winning on the road so hard," Petrino said. "It's hard, no question about it. But if you can have patience and make sure you're still in the game and have an opportunity in the fourth quarter, then it can go either way."

Though their record doesn't indicate it, the Bucs have done a pretty good job in all the areas Petrino mentioned. They took an early lead in Seattle and stayed close until the end at Seattle and Detroit.

In the end, though, both games turned on turnovers, the Bucs fumbling the ball away just outside the red zone late against Seattle and fumbling it away again inside the red zone late against Detroit.

"Outside of the Indianapolis game, we played to a level where we could have won both of those football games," quarterback Jeff Garcia said. "Unfortunately, we made the mistakes that hurt us.

"So it's important that we eliminate those errors and the penalties that have come at inopportune times. We just have to really be sharp in what we do. If we do that, we'll give ourselves a chance to win."

Reporter Roy Cummings can be reached at (813) 259-7979 or rcummings@tampatrib.com.

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