TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

2002 A Faded Memory For Bucs

ADVERTISEMENT

By JOEY JOHNSTON

jjohnston@tampatrib.com

Published: January 24, 2009

TAMPA - The Big Game is coming to town. Former Bucs safety Dexter Jackson, back home in Tampa after an injury-plagued season with the Cincinnati Bengals, said he senses the community's excitement.

But this time of year, Jackson's mind inevitably drifts back to Super Bowl XXXVII, when the Bucs slaughtered the Oakland Raiders 48-21, almost six years ago to the day, and ruled the NFL.

"There are always reminders," Jackson said in a phone interview. "In fact, I'm driving around in one of those reminders right now."

Jackson's black 2003 Cadillac Escalade, his prize for being voted the game's Most Valuable Player, brings back invigorating memories.

"It has been a great car," he said. "It has held up pretty well."

Unlike the Bucs.

Amid the spotlight of Tampa's Super Bowl XLIII - the Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Arizona Cardinals on Feb. 1 at Raymond James Stadium - the local team is in serious stock-taking mode.

Since the Bucs' ultimate night in San Diego, the franchise hasn't won a postseason game. Eight days ago, Coach Jon Gruden was fired. Monte Kiffin has joined his son's staff at the University of Tennessee.

By early 2004, there were 10 new starters in the lineup. Today, only four players from that Super Bowl roster - cornerback Ronde Barber, linebacker Derrick Brooks, fullback Jameel Cook and safety Jermaine Phillips - remain in Tampa.

"We got one," said Phillips, who was a rookie on Tampa Bay's Super Bowl team. "We should've gotten more. Winning it all, right now, it seems like forever ago."

"It was one of those surreal moments," said former Bucs center Jeff Christy, now coaching at his alma mater, Freeport (Pa.) Area High School. "But from that moment on, the whole thing kind of got dismantled, piece by piece. I wonder why it had to happen. I guess the franchise has to live with that."

Plenty Of Changes

Christy, a three-time Pro Bowl player, played his final NFL game at Super Bowl XXXVII.

"Halfway through the year, I kind of knew they wanted me to take a pay cut or they were going to let me go," Christy said. "At my exit interview, that was, um, strongly suggested. I knew they were bringing somebody else in and I wasn't going to be the starter.

"By then, I was done moving my family around. That was it. I retired. I had won the Super Bowl - and that's more than a lot of people could say. So I concentrate on the final game and make it a positive memory. But are there 'what if' thoughts about where that team went? Yeah. Plenty."

Maligned offensive tackle Kenyatta Walker, released by the Bucs in 2007 and retired before his 30th birthday because of knee injures, mostly remembers an offensive line that didn't allow Brad Johnson to be sacked in the postseason.

"I was young and probably pretty naïve," Walker said. "I thought we were setting up for a dynasty. I was imagining putting a Super Bowl ring on my finger every year with the guys we had on that team."

And now?

"I just cherish the one ring I have," Walker said. "We were special. But it didn't last. That's the shame of it."

Jackson said he still has the newspaper article in which Kiffin declared "the carousel had stopped turning" at free safety. But when the season ended, even after Jackson's two-interception performance produced a Super Bowl MVP award, the Bucs couldn't match the five-year, $14 million offer of the Cardinals.

Jackson bolted for the desert.

"Mike Tomlin then the Bucs' secondary coach said, 'Dexter, you've busted your behind and you deserve this,'" Jackson said. "It would've been nice to stay in Tampa, but things change. And with the Bucs, they kept changing and changing."

Top Of The World

Even with all the changes, a Super Bowl championship can't be minimized.

Plenty of great teams never win one.

Christy knows. He played on the 1998 Minnesota Vikings, who were 15-1 in the regular season and scored a then-record 556 points. The Vikings lost to Atlanta in the NFC Championship Game.

"I don't want to say I feel guilty having one Super Bowl ring while those other guys from the Vikings don't, but it makes you think," Christy said. "It shows you that a lot of things have to go right in order for it to happen. And it shows you that nothing really stays the same in this game."

Jackson knows that, too.

"It's amazing to see how angry the Bucs' fans are now and they seem happy that Coach Gruden is gone," Jackson said. "Six years ago, Coach Gruden was on top of the world. We all were on top of the world.

"I'm not sure I understood the full magnitude of the moment. I'm looking at Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp and John Lynch, just seeing their faces. I'm seeing offensive tackle Lomas Brown bawling like a baby because he finally won the Super Bowl in his 18th year. I can still see it. I wish I could freeze that moment forever."

Barber said he would have liked a few postgame moments with Tomlin, his position coach and the man who will lead the Steelers into Tampa next week.

It never happened.

"I didn't even see him after the game," Barber said. "There was a lot of that. When I got to the party at the Bucs' hotel, there was no one there I knew. Just a bunch of people I've never seen before.

"The guys had already scattered."

And ever since - with the Super Bowl so near, but so far - it hasn't been the same.

Reporter Joey Johnston can be reached at (813) 259-7353.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT