Intimidate this

Big, bad Raiders taken to task by speedy Buccaneers

SAN DIEGO -- They strutted into the Super Bowl with their silver and black, all that Raiders' mystique, all that experience, and that was supposed to mean something. That was supposed to intimidate. That was supposed to be enough.

But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took that spiked-up Oakland image and smashed it back in their faces. Ran it into the ground. Bolted right past it.

And by the time Super Bowl XXXVII was over on Sunday -- mercifully, for Oakland -- the Bucs proved themselves to be the baddest, meanest, most intimidating force in the NFL.

Just move over, baby.

Tampa Bay's speedy defense was way too much for Oakland's top-ranked offense in Sunday's Super Bowl. The league's MVP, Oakland quarterback Rich Gannon, looked like the journeyman he once was. The team's Hall of Fame receivers, for the most part, looked like a couple of palookas.

That underappreciated running back everybody in the know loves? Well, we're still looking for him.

The team that lives and thrives on giving castoffs second chances, that values experience and toughness above all else, looked fat and beaten and worn out by the end of the 48-21 thumping by the Bucs.

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The Raiders, in a word, looked old.

"I wouldn't say they looked tired," said Tampa Bay safety Dexter Jackson, who picked off two Gannon passes and was named the game's MVP. "I'd say the look was more frustration. All year, we've been killing teams like that."

Yes, from the start, it was pretty clear that the Raiders were the second-best team in the stadium Sunday. The Raiders' offensive line was praised for its size and strength, but the Bucs bowled them over, ran right past them on the outside, spun up inside and pressured Gannon into mistake after mistake. The Bucs sacked Gannon five times. He threw a Super Bowl-record five interceptions. He looked lost.

"It was a nightmarish performance," the quarterback said. "We were just completely out of rhythm."

When he was pressured, and even when he wasn't, Gannon threw into the teeth of the Bucs' defense. Flushed out of the pocket, Gannon thought he could dump off a pass to tight end Doug Jolley. Jackson stepped in front of it. Pick.

Another time, Gannon pump-faked to the left. Jackson didn't bite. Gannon looked back to the right side and threw anyway, toward Jerry Porter. Jackson raced over. Pick.

In the third quarter, Gannon looked for the ageless Jerry Rice on the left side on a short turnaround, but cornerback Dwight Smith raced toward the floater of a pass. Pick again.

"I'm stunned," said Oakland fullback Jon Ritchie, the always-present pair of cuts on his forehead still oozing. "From the get-go, we weren't on. It was shocking."

The Raiders were beaten Sunday, and afterward it was clear that they knew it was a beating. The confidence was gone. The swagger was stilled. They walked around, blaming themselves plenty, crediting Tampa Bay a lot.

But you could tell -- this was a team that was overmatched and knew it.

"They couldn’t get on a roll because they couldn’t stand the pressure," said Tampa Bay's Simeon Rice.

"If you're going to throw the ball against our defense … good luck," said Tampa Bay's head coach, Jon Gruden.

The Raiders lost in virtually every phase of this game. Their offense was stymied until, really, the game was no longer in doubt. Their defense gave up 365 yards, including 124 to nobody running back Michael Pittman.

And the Raiders' head coach, Bill Callahan, was given a lesson by the man he replaced, Gruden.

"That was the first game where we checked plays [at the line] and they knew where we were going, what we were doing," Oakland guard Frank Middleton said of Tampa Bay's defense. "They were in our playbook a little bit."

Sunday's game answered a lot of questions for a lot of people around the league. The No. 1 defense beat the No. 1 offense. Speed beat size.

And good, talented, young players -- or at least younger players -- beat guys like Gannon and Rice and Tim Brown (who had one catch) and linebacker Bill Romanowski and safety Rod Woodson.

"They have a great offense. They have Hall of Famers all over the field. But we've been doing this all year," Tampa Bay safety John Lynch said.

Sunday's Super Bowl, as the score shows, wasn't close. Youth was served.

The aging, overmatched Raiders were the main course.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

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