TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Bucking The Trend

Tribune photo by CLIFF McBRIDE

Earnest Graham warms up before the game vs. the Houston Texans.

ADVERTISEMENT

By ROY CUMMINGS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 7, 2008

NEW ORLEANS - Football teams don't come with instruction manuals. If they did, the 2008 Bucs manual would suggest the operator run the ball. A quick check of the parts list tells why.

One dastardly mean and aggressive center; two road-grading guards; three tailbacks with varying skills, each worthy of a starting assignment.

Assemble those parts and you quickly realize receiver Joey Galloway is no longer the Bucs' only offensive weapon.

NFL scouts are in agreement: the Bucs' strengths on offense are an interior line built to run the ball and a herd of running backs in Earnest Graham, Warrick Dunn and Michael Bennett. What many wonder is whether the Bucs will play to their strengths.

Bucs coach Jon Gruden has never tried to hide his affinity for the passing game. Even when conditions or situations suggest running the ball, he often chooses to throw.

The playoff game against the Giants last January was the latest example. After his backfield established a 7-0 first-quarter lead, Gruden suddenly abandoned the running game.

Reverting to an air-oriented game plan that called for the Bucs to lean mostly on tight end Jerramy Stevens and an injured Galloway, Gruden called for 11 runs the rest of the day.

With the run an afterthought, New York strafed Bucs quarterback Jeff Garcia, sacking him once and intercepting him twice in a 24-14 victory.

In a 2006 game against the Giants at the Meadowlands, Gruden ordered rookie quarterback Bruce Gradkowski to throw 48 times into 40 mph wind gusts.

Yet, many of the same scouts who believe the Bucs' best weapon is their running game believe the Bucs still will try to set up the run with the pass.

"The word I'm getting from our scout there is that nothing will change, they'll still try to pass to set up the run," said Ken Ilchuk of RealScouts.com, an NFL scouting service for teams and periodicals such as The Sporting News.

"They're going to try to use Warrick Dunn mostly in the screen game and get Michael Bennett out in the slot. They still want to possess the ball and eat the clock, but they'll do it with the pass."

That's Gruden's method. He once said he would throw the ball on every down if he could, and he has long used a short passing game to control the ball while filtering in runs, mostly to keep the defense honest.

That has certainly been the case here in Tampa. Beginning with his debut season in 2002 through 2006, Gruden's offenses ranked 23rd, 22nd, 27th, 15th and 28th in the league in rushing attempts. At the same time, they ranked 11th, third, 20th, 20th and 11th overall in passing attempts.

It wasn't until last year, when the interior of that offensive line first started coming together and Graham emerged as a capable power back, that the trend changed.

In a reversal, the 2007 Bucs ranked 11th in the league in rushing attempts and 25th in passing attempts. Many who were involved in that reversal believe it will continue.

"There were a lot of guys around here last year who were kind of looking at each other and saying, 'Man, we sure are running the ball a lot,'" fullback B.J. Askew said. "And you know what, I think it's going to stay that way. I think we're going to run and run and run."

So does Garcia. Though Garcia is precisely the kind of quarterback Gruden wants running his short- and intermediate-range passing attack, he believes the Bucs will attack the way they did last year.

"I don't think anything is going to be any different," Garcia said of the run-to-pass ratio. "I think the emphasis is still going to be on creating an advantage through the run game."

Few believe the Bucs will struggle to run the ball this year.

That portion of their attack averaged 117 yards per game and 4.2 yards per carry last year, the latter mark being nearly a half-yard more than the running game averaged the previous five years.

As long as the running game produces at that pace, it will remain the primary mode of attack for the Bucs. Right? Well, maybe. With Gruden, you never know.

"We were pretty good last year," Gruden said of the running game. "We were in the upper echelon of football. And if Askew is back and he's the real deal that we think he is and Earnest Graham and Warrick Dunn can work together and the offensive line does what it's supposed to do we'll be pretty good again. But we've got to throw the football to make our running game work. We've got to be a good passing team to be successful."

So much for that instruction manual.

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

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT