Massacre in Tampa Bay

By Rick Anderson

It was a war zone out there. The Buffalo Bills not only lost the game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-17, but also lost three of their defensive starters in the first half alone. The Bills were battered physically as well as on the scoreboard as the Bucs blew the game open in the latter part of the game.

Double Sack Attack! Marcellus Wiley and Sam Cowart do the double whammy to Buccaneers quarterback Shaun King in the first quarter. Cowart was later injured in the first half with an high ankle sprain which will keep him out for a month.

[AP Photo/Chris O'Meara]

The Buffalo Bills sidelines resembled an emergency room with all the injured players hobbling off. Bills quarterback Rob Johnson was brutally assailed on the playing field and even he had to come off for a while. Many others walked off with various injuries, but came back into the game. The major injuries were to Sam Cowart and safety Keion Carpenter, who both left with high ankle sprains. Sam Rogers left with what was originally described as a torn groin muscle, but was downgraded Monday as a pulled groin. All three could miss as much as a month - the worst possible time for the Bills during the final playoff stretch.

Playoff hopes mangled

By losing to Tampa Bay the Bills now stand 7-5 and, while they still have a good chance to make the playoffs mathematically, their playoff hopes were severely damaged by the three injuries. The Bills, who entered the game without cornerbacks Antoine Winfield and Donovan Greer along with Phil Hansen, now will be lucky to have Rogers, Cowart and Carpenter for the last game of the season against Seattle.

All three, Rogers, Cowart and Carpenter were injured on the same Tampa Bay drive which resulted in the Buccaneers' first touchdown in the second quarter.

"I've never seen anything like this," linebacker John Holecek exclaimed. "Guys are just dropping like flies."

"We're losing five interceptions at our free safety, we're losing the best inside linebacker in the National Football League and a seven-year veteran," added Keith Newman. "It doesn't matter if you lose them in the last game of the year or the first game of the season, those are three key losses."

Bills head coach Wade Phillips agreed.

"Anytime you lose Sam Rogers, Sam Cowart and Keion Carpenter off your defense it's going to hurt your defense, and I think in the fourth quarter you saw that," contended Phillips. "Those injuries killed us."

Can the Bills defense, which has been carrying the offense all season, continue to play this way without 5 of their starters in the lineup? In order for Buffalo to make the playoffs, they must step it up a couple notches higher.

Sack attack

This was a game where the quarterbacks' lives were in danger. There were a total of 13 sacks, 7 made by the Bills D and 6 by Tampa Bay. Rob Johnson was knocked out after he was barely able to shovel pass to Shawn Bryson before being hauled down like a bag of potatoes. Doug Flutie came in for two plays before Johnson cleared some of the cobwebs out of his head and returned.

Sam Cowart was having an outstanding half with 2½ sacks before he was forced out with a high ankle sprain. At one point in the first half, the Bills sacked Bucs quarterback Shaun King three straight times, an almost unheard of event.

Once again, the Bills offensive line had a terrible time protecting Johnson. The six sacks ties the most Johnson has had during a game this year, and he was one frayed quarterback at the end of the game. When the game was all but lost, Flutie came in and did the mop up duty.

What went wrong?

How can you explain the discrepancy between the score and the total yards by both teams? Buffalo outgained the Buccaneers 433-180, yet were still blown away by two touchdowns.

The keys to the Bucs win were obvious. Poor special teams play by the Bills, turnovers and 3 key injuries that wore the Bills defense thin. Special teams, which has been poor at best all season, has gotten worse. Ronnie Jones, who was hired to replace the fired Bruce DeHaven, has not gotten the job done. The Bills are ranked 31st in the league in almost every special teams category. DeHaven, who was made the scapegoat for that home run throwback play that dethrottled the Bills in the wildcard game last year, must be taking great pleasure from the Bills horrid special teams play this year.

The Bills offense had the yardage but nothing to show for it. In the first half, The Bills had an opportunity to take the lead near the end of the first half, but a sack on Johnson, the lack of timeouts and confusion on the field led to Steve Christie missing a hurried 42-yard field goal attempt with two seconds remaining.

In the fourth quarter, everything came apart for the Bills. Warrick Dunn capped a 70-yard drive in 10 plays with his 6-yard touchdown run.

Tampa's Warren Sapp sacks Rob Johnson and forces the ball out. However, the refs ruled that Johnson was down before he fumbled.

[AP Photo/Steve Nesius]

The Bills got in great field position when Jay Riemersma picked up 35 yards on a pass. After a series of penalties, the Bills 3rd and 9 at the Tampa 21 when Price tried to stretch out a pass reception an extra yard for the first down and had the ball stripped from him, giving the Bucs the ball at the Bills 11.

The Bills came back and drove down the field thanks mainly in part to a reverse to Peerless Price that got the ball down to the Tampa 19. From there, Johnson hit Eric Moulds for a 19-yard touchdown pass. It was Johnson's second touchdown strike of the game. He had hit Jonathan Linton in the first half in the back of the endzone from 4 yards out to give the Bills their only lead of the game 7-3.

After Moulds TD reception, everything went to pot for the Bills. On the ensuing Christie kickoff, Ridel Anthony broke into the clear and would have scored if Christie hadn't made the tackle at the Bills 49. The Bills defense held that time, but it showed the Bucs the weakness in their special teams coverage of returns. When Chris Mohr punted to Carl Williams at his own 21, the Bills should have had the Bucs back deep in their own territory for a change. Instead, Williams broke through and evaded Mohr as the last Bill able to prevent him from scoring a 79-yard touchdown.

The Bills drove down in a desperate effort to get back into the game. That's when Johnson shoveled the ball off to Bryson just before being sacked and slammed down to the turf. Flutie came on for two plays and Johnson surprised everyone by coming back out when the Billls faced third-and-nine at the Tampa 10. He couldn't get the Bills in the endzone, so Christie came on and kicked a field goal to make it 24-17.

After the field goal, there was 2:27 remaining in the contest. Bills coach Wade Phillips elected to go for an onside kick which was recovered by the Buccaneers. Right after that, Dunn broke through a gap and rambled 39 yards for a touchdown to finish the Bills off for good.

"I was worried about being able to hold them, and we'd have two shots at it with the onside kick," Phillips defended his decision to go with an onside kick. "We had a shot at the onside kick and a shot at stopping them with two minutes left with the timeouts. If we needed three it might have been different, but our defense didn't hold anyway."

"If we do kick it, our cover team hasn't been great, and they could run it back to that point anyway," chipped in Holecek.

Bills road from here

It's going to be an uphill road from here, with plenty of bumps along the way. With the three key injuries to Rogers, Cowart and Carpenter to go along with Winfield, Greer and Phil Hansen, the Bills D has been ripped to shreds. Even with the injuries, the defense held their ground in the second half with the exception of the 39-yard run by Dunn.

The offense continues to not get the job done especially when they get close to the red zone. Johnson did have a good game, completing 24 of 39 for 262 yards and two strikes. The Bills were able to run for 139 yards, but 77 of those came from Johnson, Flutie, Moulds and Price. The actual running backs only got 62 yards on 19 carries. That's just not good enough.

Then there's the special teams........ Bruce DeHaven never looked so smart.

Bills Talk

Carpenter, was downgraded to 5-6 weeks before he can play, thinks players like Travares Tillman can fill his shoes down the stretch.

"It's a tough loss but the season's not over," said Carpenter. "We've got young guys, and they will step in and play and we'll do whatever we can to help get them ready."

Carpenter described the play when he got injured.

"It was kind of bad judgment on my part," Carpenter talked about how he injured his ankle when he missed the tackle on Shaun King's touchdown run . "I had over-ran him and I knew he was going to cut back. I planted and tried to break down to make the tackle, but it wasn't happening."

The Bills were doing their version of a M.A.S.H. unit on the sidelines late in the first half.

"We had to use a timeout because we didn't know who the hell was out there," said Holecek. "We had so many subs. We almost were unable to field a nickel team or a dime. We had to go regular for a minute. It was a little unorganized with so many guys going down at the same time."

Phillips addressed the injury situation in his Monday press conference.

"The number one thing coming out of the game was injuries," Phillips said. "Even though we lost the game, it was a hard-fought game and the team ran out of personnel at the end of the game. To give up three touchdowns in one quarter is not indicative of our team overall, but we had six legitimate ankle injuries in the game, most of those guys were playing special teams and/or defense. It wore us down at the end of the game. We had guys playing on one leg, so to speak, and we had guys hurt. The guys replacing them were banged up also, which was a big problem."

Wade also acknowledged the unspecial play of the special teams. "I think the big thing on kickoff coverage is we tried to kick it deep this game as much as we could, and it didn't pay off for us," he said. "We got hurt outkicking our coverage on kickoffs and punts, so that was a problem for us."

Rob Johnson try to describe how he got hurt.

"I don't even remember what happened," Johnson said. "They said they slammed my head down pretty hard. What happens there, you just kind of lose it for a second,'' Johnson said. "I was fine. I went back in, but after that I got a little nauseous. After we were down by 14, they didn't see any point in me going back in.''

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