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Bryant's Production Vs. Bears Gives Bucs Reason To Smile

Tribune photo by JAY CONNER

Antonio Bryant is tackled after catch early in the overtime period.

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By ROY CUMMINGS The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 23, 2008

Updated: 09/23/2008 12:12 am

TAMPA - Antonio Bryant couldn't quite bring himself to smile Sunday. Not even after catching 10 passes and playing a huge role in the Bucs' equally huge 27-24 overtime victory over the Bears at Soldier Field.

"This was just one game," he said. "Ultimately, it's about getting into the playoffs and doing something no one has ever done before and that's playing in a Super Bowl in your own town. If we get to that point, you'll see a different guy; I'll definitely be smiling then."

The Bucs aren't sure they want to see a different guy. After all, the Bryant who sliced up the Bears defense for 138 critical yards on Sunday was a Bryant no one has ever seen before.

His 10 catches were a single-game career high and they came just as Bryant was beginning to feel like himself again after spending all of last year watching football from a couch in his home in Miami.

"I really feel like I got broken back in in this game," said Bryant, who lost all of the 2007 season to a two-game league-mandated suspension and subsequent lack of interest from all 32 NFL teams.

The lack of interest is a little hard to quantify when you consider Bryant's skill set. He's a big receiver (6-foot-1, 205 pounds) and he's never lost the ability to win battles for the ball in traffic and make yards after the catch.

What Bryant always tends to lose at some point, though, is his cool, and too often (twice now) he's lost it with his coaches. It's no great surprise then that he sat on that couch all last year.

Of course, it's no surprise that the Bucs were the team to pull him off it, either. They seem to have a soft spot for pass catchers with troubled pasts (see David Boston and Jerramy Stevens) and Bryant certainly fits the bill.

He also fits their offense. He probably fits best as a flanker, but he has just enough speed left in his 27-year-old legs to work as a split end, too and with Joey Galloway ailing that's where he worked on Sunday.

It's a spot that often calls for the receiver to run deep and clear out the areas just off the line of scrimmage so that others can make a catch, but Sunday's game played out a little differently.

With the Bears cramming eight, nine and even sometimes 10 players at the line of scrimmage, the Bucs often were dared to throw downfield. On a couple of occasions they took the dare.

Bryant made catches of 14 and 11 yards in the first half, and had catches of 14, 17 and 19 yards before making his biggest catch of the day, a 38-yarder, to set up the game-winning field goal in overtime.

"For Antonio Bryant to make that play at that time and still have the juice left in his legs to beat the corner is really a credit to him," quarterback Brian Griese said. "By that time the guys were really tired."

Bryant was pretty tired himself. But he said the 90-plus-degree weather the Bucs practice in and the pace at which Coach Jon Gruden works his players allowed him to still be sharp at a time when others might have wilted.

Gruden wasn't ready to take the credit for Bryant's fitness. He said Bryant did more than just lay around the couch last year and that it showed when it had to late in the game on Sunday.

"He wasn't really on the couch last year," Gruden said. "He was working out, hoping, I think, that he was going to get one more opportunity to show that he belongs in the league and what kind of man and receiver he can be."

He showed it on Sunday and in the clutch, too, with Galloway on the sidelines and the Bucs needing someone to step up and make a big play to win a critical game.

"It was encouraging, but I was really just doing my part and be a part of things and make a play," Bryant said.

He made several. All of them worth smiling over.

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

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