TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -Dominant at home and resilient on the road, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have climbed back into a tie for first place heading into a stretch of games against NFC South rivals that could make or break their season.
The Bucs (8-3) host the New Orleans Saints on Sunday, then travel to Carolina (8-3) and Atlanta (7-4) the next two weeks with an opportunity to separate themselves from the rest of the division.
Coach Jon Gruden and his players like their chances, but stress they aren’t taking anything for granted.
“It’s going to be a really difficult game Sunday. We won’t look any further than that,” Gruden said Monday. “We’ve got a long way to go yet, but I’m really proud of our team for hanging in there.”
o, Kansas City and Detroit on the road.
After going 7-33 in games in which opponents scored first from 2003 to 2007, they’re 5-1 this season.
“Down by 10 in Chicago on our own 20-yard line, I think, with five minutes left, we find a way to win. Down 24-3 in Arrowhead, down 17 (at Detroit on Sunday) – this team has a lot of poise and confidence in one another,” Gruden said.
“Our coaches hang in there, nobody panics, and our guys have delivered some clutch plays when we’ve needed them.”
Rookie Clifton Smith returned a punt 70 yards for a touchdown against the Lions. Ronde Barber ran back one of his two interceptions 65 yards for another TD that helped keep Detroit winless.
Smith scored on a 97-yard kickoff return while the Bucs were erasing a three-TD deficit in Kansas City earlier this month, and Tampa Bay threw a franchise single-game record 67 times to get the job done in Chicago in Week 3.
Before coming from behind to beat the Bears 27-24 in overtime, the Bucs had not rallied from a deficit of 10 or more points to win since December 1999. Now they’ve done it three times in the last nine games.
“They’ve all been ugly starts but, one thing that Monte (Kiffin) and Jon (Gruden) have consistently told us, especially on the road is: ‘Don’t worry about how you start the game,”’ Barber said.
‘t know why it happens like this on the road … but we’ve just got to be proud of our ability to stay in games; not get down and not let it affect us, and just go out and do what our job requires.”
Barber’s touchdown Sunday was the fourth the Bucs have scored on defense and moved the cornerback into sole possession of third-place on the NFL list for career fumble/interception returns for a touchdown with 11.
Another key has been quarterback Jeff Garcia, who’s 5-1 since regaining the starting job he lost after a poor performance in the season opener at New Orleans.
Fourth-year linebacker Barrett Ruud, emerging as a team leader, said no one was alarmed when Tampa Bay fell behind the Lions 17-0. Garcia threw a couple of second-quarter TD passes to help the Bucs escape the hole.
“We were relaxed,” Ruud said. “Everybody was kind of upset that we got in that position, but nobody was panicking. Nobody was fearing we were going to lose the game. We felt it was just a matter of time before we got back into it.”
Nevertheless, the Bucs know they won’t continue to be successful on the road if they don’t get off to better starts against Carolina and Atlanta, both in the thick of the race for the division title.
The Chiefs (1-10) and Lions (0-11), by comparison, have one win between them.
nent is, it says a lot about the resilience of this football team. At the same time, we realized we can’t keep digging ourselves in the hole in these situations,” linebacker Derrick Brooks said. “We’re not going to let a win cover those things up.”
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