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A sexy Super Bowl With the Bucs and Raiders, we've got the best possible gamePosted: Monday January 20, 2003 12:15 AM
PHILADELPHIA -- This is the Super Bowl as it needed to be. This is the sexy one. This is The All-Mouth Super Bowl. It's Warren Sapp and Keyshawn Johnson, Kenyatta Walker and Frank Middleton. By the end of the week -- really, by about Tuesday afternoon -- we'll be looking to gag all of them. This is The What's-A-Coach-Worth Super Bowl. Did the Oakland Raiders mess up by taking $8 million and some draft picks for Jon Gruden, letting him go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or will the Raiders be able to win The Big One with a dirt-cheap head coach ... what's his name? Ah, yes, Bill Callahan. Nothing against the Tennessee Titans or Philadelphia Eagles, the two teams banished Sunday to watching the Super Bowl on TV. But the Raiders and Bucs, for most of the football-watching world, are the two best teams that XXXVII could have landed, at least in terms of sheer intrigue. Really, you have the No. 1 offense in the NFL, courtesy of the Raiders' surgically honed so-called West Coast offense, against Tampa Bay's quick, smart and mouthy -- did we mention that? -- defense, No. 1 in the league. You have the storied Raiders -- Stabler and Biletnikoff and Tatum and Madden and all that Oakland-to-L.A.-to-Oakland gallivanting -- against the Bucs, in the first Super Bowl in their franchise's history. It's East Coast, kind of, against West Coast, silver and black against pewter or whatever that is, the first all-piratey Super Bowl in the history of the game. "Sheesh ... I remember being called the 'Yuckaneers,'" said Tampa Bay's Warren Sapp, shaking his head. Sapp is wrapping up his eighth year in Tampa. "It's just not nice to be called the 'Yuckaneers.' It's not." During the next week, we'll be bombarded by the inevitable talk, talk, talk of Super Bowl week. Everybody but Dr. Phil will take their turns analyzing the Bucs, then the Raiders, then the Bucs vs. the Raiders. Then the Raiders vs. the Bucs. It can get numbing after a few days. But this game promises to play out better than, say, Tennessee-Philadelphia would have, or Tennessee-Tampa Bay, or even Philly-Oakland. There is some real feeling there with Gruden, who wanted so badly to get out from under the thumb of Al Davis in Oakland that he let it be known he wanted to be in Tampa Bay. The Bucs, too, badly wanted an offensive guy to take them where their former defensive-minded coach, Tony Dungy, could not. The two teams worked it out. With their 27-10 win against Philadelphia on Sunday, the Bucs have made that $8 million and gaggle of draft picks that they sent to the Raiders for Gruden look like the greatest NFL buy since Sunday Ticket was invented. "I wouldn't probably give up a pair of nine-and-a-half turf shoes for me," Gruden joked Sunday. There also is some real emotion from the Raiders, a veteran team with the great Jerry Rice still ticking, and the great Tim Brown, who will be in his first Super Bowl in his 15-year career. And quarterback Rich Gannon, the league's MVP. That's not even accounting for an underrated defense with veterans like Bill Romanowski and Rod Woodson and a coach in Callahan who knew enough to not mess too much with what Gruden shaped in his four years there as head coach (1998-01). It will be the Raiders' first trip to the Super Bowl in 19 years. They've won it three times. "I've been looking at this game for 14 years and watching other people go," Brown said. "Now, I'm finally on my way. It's a great feeling." The Raiders, who still carry the aura of the mean, vicious-hitting team that Jack Tatum made famous back in the 1970s, are more than that now. They are an offense that has chucked its old throw-down-the-field persona for a short passing game that is eerily efficient. It is so good, in fact, that the Raiders called only one run in the first three quarters of their win against the Titans on Sunday night. One run. They won, 41-24. There's something for the Bucs' defense to think about. "It's a match made in heaven for football purists," TV analyst and former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason said of the Super Bowl. The Bucs will go in as the underdog for this one, and with that Oakland offense, it's no wonder. But the Bucs, too, have had a bit of an image makeover. They are no longer all defense and no offense. They scored two touchdowns against Philly on Sunday -- no small feat in the pit known as Veterans Stadium -- and have scored almost 24 points a game during the past 10 games. That can be directly attributed to Gruden. "I respect where I came from," Gruden said of his time in Oakland. "There's some sensitivity and there's some emotion to see Oakland play in the Super Bowl ... it would be an honor to play them." It may not be a great Super Bowl. Most of them aren't. And even if it is, last year's thrilling New England win will be tough to beat, as far as great games go. But Sunday's Super Bowl has promise. It has intrigue. Thanks to the Bucs and the Raiders, it has a little sexiness. At this point, that's about all we could hope for. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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