oh wait…. I forget

I’m eager to see if any of you remember this game. It’s the most memorable game of my life and the result couldn’t have been any more irrelevant to the Bucs successes or the National Media’s attention. The opponent? The Detroit Lions came into Ray Jay at (0-11), ha! The Bucs were sitting at (6-5).

My buddy Adam aka Awburn7 snagged some tickets from a woman he and I baby sitted for one night. Don’t laugh the kid had just got a PS2 with Madden and we were two dogs in a candy store that night. The tickets the lady gave us were in the end zone. Nobody wants to sit in the end zone, but these seats were special. Not only did they possess our right to experience our very first Buccaneers game. These Seats were on the FRONT ROW!! We were so ecstatic when we got to the Stadium. We had a third buddy come with us and he got a ticket at the game and eventually got to sit behind us at some point in the 1st half.

The pre-game was amazing. Tony Dungy, John Lynch, Derrick Brooks, Ronde Barber, Warren Sapp, Warrick Dunn, Mike Alstott, the list goes on… The Lions S Todd Lyght actually shook our hands prior to the start of the game, which made us instant fans of him. From that point on we were ravage beasts. We never sat down.

If you’ll remember back, this was the season in which WR Keyshawn Johnson had not caught a touchdown pass up to that point. So naturally I made a poster with a bull’s-eye on it pleading Keyshawn to ’Catch a Touchdown Here’… in other words, in our end zone. This game had it all: Brad Johnson threw for over 300 yards (with two ints), Alstott had a patented 24 yard rumble-and-stumble into the end zone. Keyshawn Johnson had his game of the season with 10 catches for 101 yards. There was only one downfall….

The Bucs were losing the game deep into the fourth quarter, to a winless, but scrappy as hell Lions squad. Keyshawn Johnson despite his success had not made it into the end zone and the clock was running out. The Bucs were trailing 12-7 with less than 5 minutes to go when Brad Johnson orchestrated an eighty yard drive. How did the Bucs cap that drive off? With a GAME WINNING touchdown pass to, you guessed it, WR Keyshawn Johnson, in? In our freaking end zone!!! It was simply amazing. Mike Alstott caught a two point conversion to put the Bucs up by three with :54 seconds to go in the ball game. The defense held!!!

It was such an amazing atmosphere. You would have never known that the Bucs had just beat a winless ball club. To us and the rest of the crazy crowd it was the equivalent of a Super bowl win. The ending was so sweet. To cap off the victory, me and the fellas were walking back to our truck when a kid and his family walked up to us and explained how they just saw us on T.V… We were amazed at the days events… I will never EVER forget that game and I’ll probably never EVER Eclipse that experience at another sporting event in my life….

So let’s hear it from you guys!!!

The year was 1999 and we had a rookie QB named Shaun King who was a local boy that was going to take us to the promised land. Trouble was, we had to play the St. Louis Rams and “the greatest show on turf”. We were in St. Louis and I vividly remember King zipping a pass to then WR Bert Emmanuel and with time runng out and us being down 11-6, it appeared Emmanuel caught the first down to keep us alive. However, the referee didn’t think so and the call was incomplete and non reviewable. The screwed up thing was that the game was in hand until Kurt Warner hit Ricky Proehl on a 30 yard TD to put St. Louis up for good. What a memory….and for all the wrong reasons.

What stung so bad was that I was too young to recall the good ol times in 1979, 1982, and 1983 when we last made the playoffs. I know we made it in 1997 and 1998, but 1999 was the first year for me that we were that close to the SuperBowl. Ho Hum, I didn’t have to wait long of course because as we all know our beloved Bucs won it all in 2002.

The Monday nighter when we played the RAMS and SHAUN KING made the sandlot play to WARRICK DUNN and DUNN scamped out the endzone for the first down which we evntually scored the go ahead TD and won the game after a shoot-out with The Greatest Show on Turf. NICE! SAPP and the boys were in thier prime back then.

…and say the Super Bowl. Come on people. All of those games everyone has mentioned were great and memorable, but the absolute most memorable has to be the Super Bowl. Some of those other games has more exciting finishes or one specific memorable play, but when the Bucs finally got to the biggest stage and brought home the trophy…well to me that was the best moment in history.

Here is the link…http://www.buccaneers.com/news/newsprint.aspx?newsid=5336

1. December 18, 2000: Bucs 38, Rams 35.

2. November 13, 2005: Bucs 36, Redskins 35

3. August 31, 1997: Bucs 13, 49ers 6

4. November 1, 1998: Bucs 27, Vikings 24

5. September 8, 2003: Bucs 17, Eagles 0

The Best of the Rest

Nov. 17, 1996: Bucs 25, Chargers 17. The veteran core of the 2002 Super Bowl team always pointed to this comeback win as the start of its climb to supremacy. Trent Dilfer directed a comeback from an early 14-0 deficit, throwing for 327 yards.

Nov. 2, 1997: Bucs 31, Colts 28. Perhaps Karl Williams’ greatest game. The soft-spoken receiver caught two TD passes and set up the winning score with a long punt return. The Bucs had lost three straight and another defeat could have rendered their historic 5-0 start moot.

Dec. 6 and Dec. 12, 1999: Bucs 24, Vikings 17 and Bucs 23, Lions 16. Third-string QB Shaun King is thrown into the fire of a four-way division title race. Spurred on by an early Donnie Abraham interception-TD against Minnesota, King handles the pressure of Monday Night Football, then follows up with 297 passing yards against the Lions.

Dec. 10, 2000: Bucs 16, Dolphins 13. Classic "Buc-ball," as DT Warren Sapp said after the game. Jamie Duncan returned a pick 31 yards for a TD and Martin Gramatica hit two field goals in the fourth quarter, including a game-winning 46-yarder in a heavy downpour.

Nov. 7, 2004: Bucs 34, Chiefs 31. Another shootout win against a high-powered offense. Michael Pittman scored three TDs, one on a team-record 78-yard run, and Dwight Smith prevented a sure KC score by running Eddie Kennison down from behind and forcing a fumble into the end zone.

Dec. 24, 2005: Bucs 30, Falcons 27. Just a tiny bit better than the first Bucs-Falcons game of ’05, this one looked all but lost when the home team fumbled the opening kickoff of OT. But Dewayne White blocked the ensuing field goal and the Bucs eventually won at the end of the extra period on Matt Bryant’s 23-yard field goal.