Tuesday, October 10
Memo to pirate ship at Raymond James: You're sinking




MINNEAPOLIS -- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' celebrated 'Pirate Ship' is sinking. The team has lost three games in a row. The Bucs trail the Minnesota Vikings by two-and-a-half games.

And Shaun King keeps trying to throw the damn ball to Keyshawn Johnson, but bad things are happening. Monday night's 30-23 loss to the Vikings proved that being different didn't even help.

Coach Tony Dungy finally opened up his offense. King often lined up with three receivers at his disposal. There was more Warrick Dunn and less Mike Allstott.

"They opened their mouths a little bit by saying that they were going to pass," Vikings safety Orlando Thomas said. "When we didn't see Mike in there early, we knew it was going to be wide open."

King completed 26 of 40 passes for 295 yards and moved the ball up and down the field on the Vikings defense. Eleven times he connected with Jacquez Green. As for Keyshawn, there was a little more adventure involved there.

Two plays into the game, Thomas stripped the ball from Johnson's hands -- the second fumble in as many weeks for a receiver who said he's never fumbled before this season. Quarterback Daunte Culpepper ran for a 27-yard touchdown on the next play and the Vikings led, 7-0, a mere 24 seconds into the game.

Johnson finished with five catches for 71 yards but a big one slipped out of his hands and out of bounds at the Vikings 6-yard line with 14 seconds left.

"We're not making the crucial plays and that's the difference between winning and losing when you play against good teams," Dungy said. "We have not made them so we are going to have to go to work, come out of this bye and get ourselves in the mind set that we start to make them."

This isn't your typical Bucs. Mental mistakes are plentiful. King, playing his best game of the season and maybe his career, was at the Vikings 2 with a third down in the final seconds of the third quarter. The Bucs trailed, 20-13, and were hoping for the tie.

Tight end Patrick Hape made a false start, but the play went on. King was sacked, but he arose and tossed the football in frustration in the face of Vikings defensive tackle Tony Williams. That resulted in a 15-yard penalty that killed the potential touchdown drive and forced the Bucs to settle for a field goal.

"He felt he got hit late on the play before and they didn't call it," Dungy explained. "Then they blew the whistle and he stops playing and they threw him down again. He's frustrated but you can't throw the ball at people. That's the bottom line. We're making mistakes when you just can't make them."

Other mistakes were critical. For whatever reason, the Bucs can't seem to convert a short-yardage play consistently, regardless of who they try at quarterback. During a critical part of the fourth quarter, trailing 27-23, the Bucs turned to their fullback Alstott, who rolled right and threw a pass 30 yards to his left.

The receiver was rookie tight end Todd Yoder, who looked worse than a rookie. He could have passed for a clumsy person falling backward while hailing a cab. The ball sailed several yards over his head for an incompletion.

"It was a great call," Thomas said. "We got a lot of pressure. We had a lot of hands in Allstott's face to force him to make a bad throw."

Offensive coordinator Les Steckel dug into his bag of tricks two more times. In a desperation drive in the final seconds, King fired a pass to Alstott, who flipped it back to Dunn on a hook-and-ladder for a 26-yard gain. On the last play, King almost got a Hail Mary pass completed to Green but officials ruled him down in the end zone.

"We could have played that a little better on defense because only two guys jumped up," Thomas said of the Vikings deep coverage on the last play of the game.

Despite their third straight loss, the Bucs aren't hitting the panic button. They have 10 days off before playing a Thursday night home game against Detroit.

"We got to set the ship right," defensive tackle Warren Sapp said. "We need to go and get some guys healthy and get some nicks out of the way. We need to work on our fundamentals. What's breaking down right now is killing us."

Sapp sees the division title slipping out of his team's grasp. "We're just not playing well enough to win," Sapp said. "But we've still got a very confident ballclub."

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.




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