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Somehow, Bucs Not Ground-Bound

Tribune photo by JOSEPH BROWN III

Brian Griese throws a pass in the second quarter against the Falcons Sunday.

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 15, 2008

Updated: 09/14/2008 11:50 pm

TAMPA - They say you can use Earnest Graham to pound the football. He is tough, determined, dependable, but hardly a Usain Bolt in shoulder pads. Except he sure did a nice impression of a sprinter as he ran 68 yards down the right sideline late Sunday afternoon.

He wound up in the end zone for a touchdown that put away Atlanta, 24-9, a fitting exclamation point to a day when he finished with 116 yards on 15 carries. Imagine what he might have done with 25 carries.

Well, we do imagine.

His running buddy, Warrick Dunn, was pretty good, too. Dunn had a dandy touchdown run earlier in the game on third-and-goal from the 17 when the Bucs looked to be settling for a field goal.

Yes, these Bucs ran well Sunday - that is, when they ran at all.

They lugged the leather 28 times in this game, which doesn't sound so bad until you notice that their last eight plays in the final five minutes were runs to milk the clock. Before then, the ratio was 31 passes to 20 runs. Average net gain per pass: 4.5 yards.

I don't mean to inflict death by statistics on you, so let's keep it simple.

The Bucs are awfully good when they run the ball, so why don't they do it more often? The first three runs early in the game didn't amount to much and it looked like Jon Gruden got bored, which he often does when things are crackling.

He is a stubborn sort who, as we know, has an infatuation with quarterbacks that somehow never translates to guys who run.

Wanted To Run

The guys doing the running and the blocking had their coach's back, though. They say, honest, the best intention in both games was to run, run, run. Circumstances got in the way.

"The thing about offense is that we're an adaptive offense; we adapt to the situation," center Jeff Faine said. "There have been times that a run has been called and we just didn't get the look we needed to be successful. Brian Griese, or Jeff Garcia last week, got us out of the play and into something we needed to be successful. Coach Gruden definitely loves to run the ball.

"Why would you run right into a blitz? Why would you run into a look where your chances of success are not that good? It's hard when you're on the outside looking in to see what's happening on the field."

Point made and accepted.

Come to think of it - no disrespect intended toward Griese, but if you were the Falcons' defensive coordinator wouldn't you have wanted to make him beat you, too? The best part of this offense, after all, lines up behind the quarterback. That's the thing you target first.

"Coming in, we wanted to run the ball," Graham said. "It's not that we didn't want to run the ball but we wouldn't be in the situation where you could. When we had to make plays in the running game, we made them. I try not to get into the number of times we've run and all that.

"I'm a running back but I'm not a guy that wants to sit there and pound it 30 or 40 times, get 2 yards a carry, and just be patient. We've got players on that field. Antonio Bryant and Joey Galloway can play ball, you know?"

Seems Strange

The Bucs led 17-9 with a little more than three minutes to play when Graham broke it open against a defense designed to stuff the run. The Falcons knew the Bucs weren't about to throw, lest an incompletion stop the clock.

"It was like a walk-off home run," Faine said.

But it also begs the question: If they know what's coming and still can't stop it, isn't that exactly what you want from a running game?

"It's not that simple to say you need to run more or pass more," Dunn said. "It depends on the flow of the game. If you're running the football and not gaining yards, it doesn't make more sense to continue to run.

"You can pound, pound, pound, but Coach Gruden's personality is that he wants to score touchdowns on big plays. He uses the passing game effectively but I think the running game has been on point. It all works out."

Yeah, it did.

As this season unfolds, though, and more teams (like the Bears next week) target the ground game, the Bucs' reaction will be telling. Based on what happened Sunday, you'd hope they'd keep pounding. Or sprinting, as the case may be.

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