Walk the Plank: A Tampa Bay Buccaneers Dynasty

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Tampa, FL - Last season the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were dispatched from the playoffs with a sour taste in their mouth. The Buc's bitter rivals had eliminated them again for the second consecutive year. However, The 2001 season ended in a more embarrassing fashion. Falling to the Eagles in the wildcard game 31-9. The swashbucklers offense was nonexistent and their defense looked like amateur hour.

Eight months later and the Buc's are as confident as ever. Several of the defensive standouts have vowed to not only make their first super bowl appearance, but vowing to dispatch the Eagles on their way to San Diego.

A breakdown of the confident Buc's squad for the upcoming 2002 season can be seen shortly..

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Tampa, FL - In the 2001 off-season the Buccaneers focused on adding depth to their already stellar team. With the 14th pick in the draft, they selected Kenyatta Walker, a Tackle out of Florida. He was a recipient of the Jacobs Blocking Trophy. Which was also presented to current and recent addition to the Tampa O-line, Lomas Brown. The coaches in Tampa look for Kenyatta Walker to take the reigns after the aging Lomas Brown retires.

TB Buccaneers 2001 NFL Draft
Pick	Player	College	Pos	Ht	Wt
R1/P14	Kenyatta Walker	Florida	OT	6'5	304
R3/P84	Dwight Smith	Akron	DB	5'10	201
R4/P117	John Howell	Colorado	DB	5'11	210
R5/P151	Russ Hochstein	Nebraska	C	6'4	305
R6/P174	Jameel Cook	Illinois	FB	5'10	237
R6/P183	Ellis Wyms	Mississippi St.	DE	6'3	279
R7/P205	Dauntae' Finger	North Carolina	TE	-	-
R7/P223	Than Merrill	Yale	DB	6'2	212
R7/P234	Joe Tafoya	Arizona	DE	6'4	278

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Tampa, FL - Training camp and preseason has been completed. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a finalized roster for the 2002 season and opening day starters against the Cleveland Browns.


Out of all the rookies drafted by the team in the 2001 draft, three of them didn't make the final cut. TE Dauntae' Finger was cut early on in training camp. Tight End was an over-saturated position as is. Finger just got lost in the shuffle. Than Merrill and Joe Tafoya were both beat out for spots on the roster, but unlike Dauntae' Finger. both players were able to land a job with the Chicago Bears.

Defense, Defense, Defense. That will continue to be the motto of this team. They added solid depth to an already excellent roster of guys.

The only question is, can Brad Johnson continue to lead the offensive squad? The QB is 33 years old and has solid pieces around him, especially in the receiving corps. Keyshawn Johnson is coming off a big year, grabbing 106 catches. Also, joining the squad is former Jaguar, Keenan McCardell who is coming of a big year for himself too. He brought in 93 catches and over 1,000 yards. However, despite the upgrade at Wide Receiver. The loss of Warrick Dunn could effect the team negatively.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Depth Chart -
Regular Offense
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
WR	Keyshawn Johnson	Joe Jurevicius	Reggie Barlow
TE	Rickey Dudley	Ken Dilger	Casey Crawford	Marco Battaglia
LT	Lomas Brown	Kenyatta Walker
LG	Kerry Jenkins	Russ Hochstein
C	Jeff Christy	Morris Unutoa	Mike Solwold	Ryan Benjamin
RG	Cosey Coleman	Todd Washington
RT	Roman Oben	Cornell Green
WR	Keenan McCardell	Karl Williams	Charles Lee
QB	Brad Johnson	Rob Johnson	Shaun King
FB	Mike Alstott	Jameel Cook	Darian Barnes
HB	Michael Pittman	Aaron Stecker	Travis Stephens
Base 4-3 Defense
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
LDE	Simeon Rice	Ellis Wyms
LDT	Warren Sapp	Buck Gurley	De Vone Claybrooks
RDT	Chatrick Darby	Anthoney McFarland
RDE	Greg Spires	Corey Smith
WLB	Ron Warner	Al Singleton	Jack Golden
MLB	Shelton Quarles	Nate Webster
SLB	Derrick Brooks	Ryan Nece
CB	Ronde Barber	Dwight Smith	Corey Ivy
SS	John Lynch	John Howell
FS	Dexter Jackson	Jermaine Phillips
CB	Brian Kelly	Tim Wansley
Special Teams
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
K	Martin Gramatica
P	Tom Tupa
PR	Karl Williams
KR	Aaron Stecker

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Matchup Preview | September 8, 2002
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Cleveland Browns (0-0-0, Away)		Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-0-0, Home)
Offensive Stats Comparison 5027 Total Yards 5002 3412 Passing Yards 3445 1615 Rushing Yards 1557 Defensive Stats Comparison 5348 Total Yards Allowed 4044 3269 Passing Yards Allowed 2490 2079 Rushing Yards Allowed 1554 320 Points Allowed 196 28 Sacks 43 17 Interceptions 31 Game Notes It's OPENING DAY! The is a game that will be won on the ground. Cleveland has a solid set of DB's that can turn a game around with an interception. If Tampa Bay wants to win, it should look to feed the ball to it's bruising backfield led by Mike Alstott.

(To anyone that may actually be reading. Let me know if you want to see anything "special" out of this dynasty.)

[Adam14]

Loving the "old school" franchise. Keep it up.

[VdoubleB]

In what was completely expected. The Browns got overwhelmed by the Buccaneers defense. Browns Quarterback Kelly Holcomb was sacked 5 times and had his passes intercepted 3 times. One of those interceptions led to a 95 yard touchdown return by Ronde Barber. To add on to the punishment, the Buc's blocke an 18 yard field goal, attempted by Chris Gardocki.

With a solid 20-0 lead heading into the 4th quarter. The Buccaneers lost their touch. Kelly Holcomb started hitting every mark. While Tampa Bay Quarterback Brad Johnson couldn't hit his and had 2 interceptions, which led to the Browns getting on the board. Twice.

Luckily for the Buccaneers they were able to recover the onside kick attempt and run the clock out to escape with the victory.

Now the game didn't completely play out like expected. The Browns running game couldn't get going and it was virtually given up on, early in the game. Only rushing the ball 9 times, between 3 players. The big shocker came on the Buccaneers side. Fullback Mike Alstott was fed the ball. Despite an early fumble. The team never lost confidence in Alstott. He carried the ball 12 times, but only produced a mere 17 yards.

The Buccaneers got away with a win here, but they will need to be running on all cylinders as they talk on the Carolina Panthers in week 2.

Cleveland Browns at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sep 5, 2002	1ST	2ND	3RD	4TH	SCORE
Cleveland Browns (0-0-0)	0	0	0	13	13
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-0-0)	0	10	10	0	20

Team Stats Comparison
	CLE	TAM
Total Offense	211	296
Rushing Yards	16	120
Passing Yards	195	176
First Downs
Punt Return Yards
Kick Return Yards
Total Yards
Turnovers	3	3
3rd Down Converstion	4 for 11	10 for 17
4th Down Conversion	1 for 1	1 for 1
2-Point Conversion
Red Zone Touchdowns/Field Goals	1 for 3 (0 FG, 1 TD)	2 for 4 (1 FG, 1 TD)
Penalties	1-5	2-11
Posession Time	23:52	36:08

Scoring Summary
SECOND QUARTER SCORING		CLE	TAM
	(TAM) Gramatica kicks 21-yard FG	0	3
	(TAM) Johnson 14-yard TD pass to Johnson	0	10
THIRD QUARTER SCORING		CLE	TAM
	(TAM) Gramatica kicks 51-yard FG	0	13
	(TAM) Barber returns interception 95-yards for a TD!	1	20
FOURTH QUARTER SCORING		CLE	TAM
	(CLE) Holcomb 5-yard TD pass to Shea	6	20
	(CLE) Holcomb 24-yard TD pass to Johnson	13	20

Cleveland Browns PASSING C/A YDS TD INT K.Holcomb 22/37 195 2 3 RUSHING ATT YDS AVG TD J.White 3 9 3.0 0 R.Bowers 3 6 2.0 0 K.Holcomb .3 1 0.3 0 RECEIVING REC YDS AVG TD K.Johnson 8 104 13.0 1 D.Northcutt 5 41 8.2 0 Q.Morgan 3 25 7.7 0 M.Campbell 3 10 3.3 0 J.White 2 12 6.0 0 A.Shea 1 5 5.0 1 DEFENSE TACK SACK INT TD D.Hambrick 11 0 1 0 E.Holmes 8 0 0 0 C.Fuller 7 0 1 0 D****dd 4 0 0 0 KICKING FG XP PTS LONG C.Gardocki 0/2 1/2 1 -

Tampa Bay Buccaneers PASSING C/A YDS TD INT B.Johnson 16/23 176 1 2 RUSHING ATT YDS AVG TD M.Pittman 29 98 3.4 0 M.Alstott 12 17 1.4 0 B.Johnson 1 4 4 0 A.Stecker 1 1 1 0 RECEIVING REC YDS AVG TD K.McCardell 5 64 12.8 0 K.Johnson 4 56 14.0 1 R.Dudley 4 34 8.5 0 K.Williams 1 11 11.0 0 M.Pittman 1 6 6.0 0 J.Jurevicius 1 5 5.0 0 DEFENSE TACK SACK INT TD R.Barber 5 0 1 1 S.Quarles 5 1 0 0 W.Sapp 4 2 0 0 J.Lynch 4 0 1 0 D.Brooks 1 0 1 0 KICKING FG XP PTS LONG M.Gramatica 2/2 2/2 8 51

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After escaping Week 1 with a victory. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are set to head to Carolina, where they'll meet Rodney Peete and the Panthers. The Panthers are coming off a 24-20 loss to the New York Giants, but looked like a threat in the process. The veteran Rodney Peete has a new favorite target. He connected with 23yr old Steve Smith 8 times last week and will look to find him again against the great Tampa Bay defense.

Matchup Preview | September 15, 2002
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-0-0, Away)		Carolina Panthers (0-1-0, Home)
Offensive Stats Comparison 296 Total Yards 247 176 Passing Yards 165 120 Rushing Yards 82 20.0 Points Per Game 20.0 Defensive Stats Comparison 162 Passing Yards Allowed 278 16 Rushing Yards Allowed 57 13.0 Points Allowed 24.0 Game Notes Both of these defenses have the capability of shutting down the other teams offense. Look for a low scoring game.