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Fennelly column: Bucs Are Walking A High Wire

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By Martin Fennelly/The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 13, 2007

TAMPA - The Colts just rode off.

It's time to get back on the horse.

That's the Bucs' charge this afternoon against the Tennessee Titans.

This season is very much in play this afternoon.

The dreamy start, the winnable division and playoff thoughts are all in play. So is a downward spiral.

That's the fork in this road.

It begins today against the Titans.

It begins against a quality team with an amazing quarterback and a ravenous defense. It starts without a proven running back, with injuries everywhere.

Don't look now, but the Bucs are essentially 0-2 against the two best teams they've met this season, the Seahawks and the Colts.

They're 3-0, having beaten the 0-5 Rams, the 0-4 Saints and the Panthers, who've also beaten the Rams and Saints. Get the idea?

Here's an idea.

'Come right back,' Ronde Barber said.

NFC South Gives Hope

And, no, Tiki hasn't called.

Rather, it's Earnest Graham in his first football start since the 2003 Outback Bowl, you know, the one that ended with Florida quarterback Rex Grossman trying to catch a pass.

Strange stuff.

This is scary stuff if you're a Bucs fans. It wouldn't take very much for this 3-1 start to turn back into vultures circling Jon Gruden's team all over again.

It could be worse. The Bucs could be in another division. As it is, the NFC Gone South gives hope to anyone who can win as much as they lose.

If the Bucs can mostly take care of business at home, and steal one on the road, they should be in the race down to the wire.

But it's a high wire at best.

You know that when you look at the backfield.

You know as the big roulette wheel keeps spinning, quarterbacks dropping all over the league, without Jeff Garcia's medical insurance card coming up.

Has a season ever hung more on one man than this Bucs season?

I can't think of one.

It's especially true now, since Chris Simms has been declared legally dead by team coroner Dr. Bruce Allen.

John Kerry and Billy Donovan would be proud of that flip-flop.

Don't you love it?

The Bucs have to love, deeply, the opportunity afforded them today.

The Colts have vanished.

It's time to get back on the horse.

'It's very important,' Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin said. 'We're 3-1, playing pretty good, and then we go to Indianapolis. I think this is more you really find out what kind of team you have in a game like this.'

And so we shall.

The Challenge Is The Same

But where there was Peyton Manning, now there is Vince Young.

Where there was greatness, there is embryonic greatness.

Either way, it's a challenge.

Thing is, the Bucs defense, at least the one we used to know, loved games like this.

They made a habit of loving them when playing Atlanta and Mike Vick, to whom Young is always being compared, hold the kennels.

'They're different,' Barber said. 'It's hard to explain. I don't think Vince is so inclined to run. When we were preparing for Mike, on any play, it was like he was running. It's not like that with Vince.'

But the challenge is the same.

Once upon a time, Derrick Brooks would drive Vick into the ground and whisper sweet nothings in his ear.

Maybe we get that today.

'We have to bring Young down first,' Kiffin said.

They have to put Indy behind them first.

The Colts are gone.

You either get back on or you don't.

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