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Jeff Garcia is Tampa Bay’s starting quarterback again, with good reason.
Garcia completed 26 of 37 passes for 310 yards, including a 47-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Bryant on Tampa Bay’s opening drive, and the Buccaneers beat the struggling Seattle Seahawks 20-10 on Sunday night.
Making his second straight start in place of Brian Griese, Garcia helped the NFC South-leading Bucs (5-2) improve to 4-0 at home.
Garcia clearly outplayed fellow backup-turned-starter Seneca Wallace, the Seahawks’ third quarterback in three weeks. Garcia was 14-of-17 by halftime, helping the Bucs take a 17-0 lead, and the outcome wasn’t ever in doubt. He was sacked once and completed passes to 10 different receivers.
Bucs coach Jon Gruden said Garcia will continue to start. The 38-year-old Garcia made his fourth Pro Bowl last season, his first with the Bucs, but lost the starting job earlier this season.
“He was hot tonight,” Gruden said. “His mobility was a factor tonight, and he created a lot of opportunities running and throwing for a lot of people.”
Wallace, meanwhile, never got rolling. He finished 12-of-23 for 73 yards, with a 2-yard touchdown pass to John Carlson with 1:55 left, and had two turnovers in the second quarter. Maurice Morris ran for 56 yards for Seattle (1-5) in its third straight loss.
“Our confidence on offense isn’t where it should be,” Seattle coach Mike Holmgren said. “Now we have to keep them going, somehow, some way, and get that confidence we used to have.”
Bryant finished with 115 yards receiving, and Earnest Graham added a 1-yard touchdown run for the Buccaneers, a fitting up-the-gut score on a night where Tampa Bay honored retired fullback Mike Alstott with a halftime ceremony.
“It was a great night for a great player,” Graham said. “And it was a pleasure to be a part of it.”
Alstott sees plenty of similarities between himself and Graham, who switched to fullback last week.
“He can do a lot. He’s versatile. He’s a team player,” Alstott said. “When he gets an opportunity he makes the best of it and, if he doesn’t get the opportunity, he doesn’t complain about it. That’s what wins championships.”
So does defense, and Tampa Bay was strong there once again.
The Bucs entered the game having given up an NFL-low three touchdowns in 11 opponent trips inside the 20, and held Seattle to a TD and field goal in two trips into the red zone. Tampa Bay held a 402-176 edge in total yards, and forced the Seahawks into settling for only a 26-yard field goal by Olindo Mare in the third quarter on a drive where Seattle drove to the 8.
Tampa Bay controlled the ball for nearly 42 minutes.
“I think the defense played great,” said Bucs safety Sabby Piscitelli. “But the biggest thing was the offense kept us off the field.”
The Bucs got their longest pass play of the season to open the scoring, the 47-yard hookup from Garcia to Bryant—who hadn’t caught a TD pass since Dec. 3, 2006.
Bryant sprinted down the left sideline, jostling with cornerback Kelly Jennings most of the way. Jennings stumbled and fell, Bryant caught the ball at the 10 and scored easily.
Graham’s score capped a six-play, 59-yard drive to give Tampa Bay a 14-0 lead midway through the second quarter. Matt Bryant added two field goals for the Bucs, who kept pace with Carolina in the NFC South.
There was a scary moment early in the second quarter, when Seattle linebacker Leroy Hill delivered a hit that injured two players—including teammate Lofa Tatupu.
Tampa Bay wide receiver Ike Hilliard made a catch around the Seattle 5, with Tatupu dragging him from behind. Hill came from the front, slamming into both, and Hilliard crumbled to the turf in such a way that teammates began instantly waving to the sideline for medical assistance.
“You never want to see that happen,” Hill said.
Hilliard—who fumbled—was driven off in a cart, but sat up for the ride. Gruden said he had a concussion and would be hospitalized for observation overnight. Tatupu had a concussion, and because the play was blown dead, Seattle felt it was denied a chance to run the fumble in for a touchdown.
“It was a factor in the game,” Holmgren said.
Xtra, xtra: Bucs halfback Warrick Dunn left the game with a back injury but Gruden said he expects him to play next week at Dallas (Associated Press - Sports).
Jeff Garcia knows the drill.
Benched quarterbacks must wait patiently for chances to show they deserve playing time, then have to make the most of those opportunities.
The three-time Pro Bowl selection answered the call Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a 27-3 victory over the Carolina Panthers\, delivering exactly what they needed to climb into a tie for first place in the NFC South.
“This is just one game and we don’t know what’s going to happen next. But it felt great to be playing again. If we can just build on these things, we have a lot of good things to look forward to,” he said.
Garcia, starting for the first time since the opener because Brian Griese is injured, threw for 173 yards and a touchdown. Warrick Dunn had his most productive day running the ball since rejoining the Bucs with 115 yards on 22 carries.
The victory, Tampa Bay’s first at home against the division rival Panthers since 2002, enabled the Bucs (4-2) to pull even in the standings with Carolina (4-2), which sputtered a week after routing Kansas City 34-0.
It has been a rollercoaster year for Garcia. He led the Bucs to the playoffs in 2007, but lost his starting job last month after missing most of training camp with a calf injury and playing poorly at New Orleans in the opener.
Instead of sulking, he got healthy. He also stopped talking about his failure to receive a contract extension during the offseason and Tampa Bay’s unsuccessful pursuit of Brett Favre when the former Green Bay quarterback decided to come out of retirement.
“I think the main thing as a player is that I need to play with emotion, I need to play with energy and I need to have a certain excitement about myself when I step on the football field,” said Garcia, whose 2-yard TD pass to Alex Smith gave Tampa Bay an early 14-0 lead.
“If I don’t have that I’m not who I need to be. It wasn’t so much being away from the game for the past four weeks as much as it was realizing where I need to get myself back to where I can be successful on the football field.”
With Griese out due to a sore elbow and shoulder, Garcia completed 15 of 20 passes with no interceptions to make a case for regaining the starting job.
Coach Jon Gruden said the 38-year-old will start next Sunday’s home game against Seattle, noting that Griese still isn’t able to throw.
“We’ve got a lot of respect for our quarterbacks and realize its a hard game to play when you’re not healthy,” Gruden said.
Earnest Graham’s 1-yard scoring run made it 27-3 early in the fourth. Rookie Geno Hayes blocked a punt and returned it 22 yards for Tampa Bay’s first touchdown, and Matt Bryant added field goals of 37 and 49 yards.
The defense did its job, too, intercepting Bucs nemesis Jake Delhomme three times, setting up a touchdown and stopping two other promising drives.
The Carolina quarterback entered the game 7-1 vs. Tampa Bay, including 4-0 at Raymond James Stadium, where the Panthers had not lost in five trips since 2002—the year the NFC South was formed.
“I don’t know if its a wake-up call. We got beat,” Delhomme said. “Very simply, we didn’t play well and they played well.”
All three of Tampa Bay’s interceptions came on passes that glanced off Delhomme’s intended targets.
Tanard Jackson picked off a first-quarter pass that deflected off tight end Dante Rosario, Jermaine Phillips intercepted a deep throw that receiver Muhsin Muhammad and cornerback Aqib Talib were battling for in the end zone, and Talib got the last one on a ball that went through Steve Smith’s hands.
Turnovers weren’t the only obstacles for the Panthers. Delhomme underthrew a wide open Smith on a 48-yard completion that easily could have gone for a 72-yard scoring pass.
“That’s kind of how our day went,” Carolina coach John Fox said.
As it was, Smith made a nice adjustment and caught the ball as he was falling to the ground, where Jackson touched him down at the Tampa Bay 24. The Panthers eventually settled for John Kasay’s 20-yard field goal after Jonathan Stewart lost a yard on second-and-goal from the 1 and Delhomme’s third-down pass was broken up in the end zone.
Delhomme was 20 of 39 for 242 yards.
Smith, who also dropped what would have been a TD pass in the final minute, finished with six catches for 112 yards. However, the Bucs limited DeAngelo Williams to 27 yards rushing on 11 carries.
“It’s a letdown for us,” Smith said. “You can’t get away from that.” ^Notes: Smith has five 100-yard games in his past seven outings against Tampa Bay. … Garcia has won five consecutive starts against Carolina, including two for the Bucs. … Dunn, who spent the past six seasons in Atlanta and beginning his career with the Bucs, has 30 100-yard games. The Panthers defense allowed a 100-yard rusher for the first time this season (Associated Press - Sports).
Brian Griese has one more bad memory of Denver to digest.
Tampa Bay’s quarterback was knocked out of the game with a swollen right elbow on a blind-side blitz in the third quarter Sunday, and he watched helplessly as Jay Cutler guided a patient Denver offense to a 16-13 win over the Buccaneers.
Cutler, who piled up nearly 1,300 yards passing in winning the AFC’s Offensive Player of the Month award in September, threw for a season-low 227 yards with a workmanlike 23-for-37 performance as he worked almost strictly the underneath routes to avoid Tampa Bay’s dominant downfield defenders.
“It’s really not my thing. We’re used to throwing the ball down the field, getting big chunks and really couldn’t do it against this defense,” said Cutler, who has led Denver to a 4-1 start.
Griese, making his first visit to Invesco Field since his five frustrating years in Denver as John Elway’s successor, never looked at cornerback Champ Bailey barreling in on him from his right side and was smothered at the goal line just as he released the ball late in the third quarter.
“It’s going to be all right,” said Griese, who couldn’t grip the ball without pain after taking a direct helmet hit on his elbow. “The doctor doesn’t seem to think that there’s anything wrong structurally so that’s a good thing.”
Bailey hesitated for a split-second just before his free shot on the quarterback. Otherwise, Griese might have been hurt worse and Bailey might have had his second career sack or at least a forced fumble.
“I wish I could get a sack,” Bailey said. “That goes down as nothing, I don’t think. I don’t know how you put that down on the stat sheet.”
The play happened so fast, but Bailey remembered every single step as he and fellow cornerback Dre’ Bly executed a rare double safety blitz.
“I had a lot of time to think,” Bailey said. “I took a little hesitation step … because he kind of pumped a little bit and when the back ran past me I thought he was going to at least look that way. And he could have hit him real quick.”
Instead, it was Bailey doing the hitting.
Griese was replaced by the more mobile Jeff Garcia, the man he supplanted after a loss to New Orleans in the opener, but Garcia had only slightly more success against the Broncos.
“I don’t care too much about quarterbacks, really,” Broncos pass-rusher Elvis Dumervil said. “I wish he would’ve stayed in the game, though. Garcia runs around too much.”
Garcia shook off several hard hits himself to lead the Buccaneers on a 13-play, 90-yard drive, hitting Ike Hilliard from 7 yards to cut Denver’s lead to 16-13 with 2:02 left.
The Broncos, who scored their only touchdown late in the third quarter on Cutler’s 10-yard pass to Brandon Stokley, iced it thanks to running back Michael Pittman, who spent the past six seasons in Tampa Bay.
Pittman, who had a couple of key third-down runs that helped the Broncos break away from a 6-6 halftime tie, put this one away with a 6-yard rumble for a first down with 1:38 left, and Denver ran out the clock and took a two-game lead over San Diego in the AFC West.
“He was fired up about this one for obvious reasons,” Cutler said. “Pitt’s been there all year for us, third down, goal line, short yardage. He’s very valuable for us.”
The Buccaneers (3-2) blunted the Broncos’ league-best offense, which came in averaging 33 points, but Denver’s defense—which had been allowing 29.5 points a game—suddenly found traction after a miserable first month.
“We’ve been in some high-scoring ballgames, back and forth, and our defense has caught a little heat,” Cutler said. “We had some trouble stopping some people, but we knew they were a lot better than that. We’ve got too much talent, too much character over there. It’s good to see them lock it down this week.”
The game’s first touchdown came with 5:41 left in the third quarter, when Stokley hauled in Cutler’s pass in the right flat and followed Brandon Marshall’s big block into the end zone to put Denver ahead 13-7.
Both teams had to dink and dunk their way down the field. Tampa Bay didn’t have a pass play longer than 17 yards and Denver had just one reception longer than 15 yards.
In the first half, Prater kicked field goals of 55 and 40 yards for Denver, and his counterpart, Matt Bryant, was good from 33 and 31 yards, the latter as the first half expired.
Prater estimated his 55-yarder would have been good from 70 yards, and he added four touchbacks in five kickoffs.
“Honest to God, why work on your kickoff return when you come here?” Bucs coach Jon Gruden said. “That guy was unbelievable.”
Griese finished 13-for-19 for 88 yards and Garcia was 13-of-17 for 93 yards, one TD and one interception.
Xtra, xtra: Bucs linebacker Barrett Ruud sprained his right knee (Associated Press - Sports).
Jeff Garcia is Tampa Bay’s starting quarterback again, with good reason.
