SUPER BOWL CONFIDENTIAL
TAMPA – As the week’s hype and festivities engulfed the Tampa area this week, it was difficult for Buccaneer players to avoid thinking about what might have been.
No team in NFL history has had a true ‘home’ game for the Super Bowl.
“For me personally, it’s really tough,” Bucs linebacker Derrick Brooks said. “To see all that’s going on here and knowing we didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that were in front of us … it could be us in that game.”
Bucs defensive end Chidi Ahanotu said, “It’s disappointing. I look in the paper and see them painting logos on the field and I’m saying, ‘That’s our field, our stadium. And we’re not there.’ It’s weird, because it’s happening right in front of our faces.”
Bucs cornerback Donnie Abraham said, “I’ve been watching the Giants and the Ravens in the playoffs and it’s tough to see them there, because it proves that we did have the type of team that can be here.
“We just didn’t put everything together. Now we have to go back to the drawing board and work hard to try to get back here next year.”
Super Bowl XXXVI is in New Orleans next January.
“Hopefully, we can use this as motivation to help us get there next year,” Bucs coach Tony Dungy told the Tampa Tribune.
“You’ve got to be extremely happy for the community,” Bucs general manager Rich McKay said. “But as far as for us, I wouldn’t say I view it as a big positive. You wake up every morning and say, ‘Gee, what could we have done to get here.'”
The answer many Bucs fans would come up with for that question is this: Score more touchdowns.
Only three teams in NFL history -the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs, the 1980 Oakland Raiders and the 1997 Denver Broncos -have won a Super Bowl without being a division champion. The Ravens, who finished second in the AFC Central to the Titans, were looking to become the fourth wild-card team to become NFL champion.
Former Giants QB Jeff Hostetler recalled the moment when it really hit him how serious the Gulf War crisis was back when the Giants played the Bills in Super Bowl XXV in 1991 here in Tampa.
“In the second quarter, I got flattened,” Hostetler recalled. “I can remember sitting there by myself and there was a helicopter hovering with its guns out. Right there in the game. I thought, ‘Man, can you believe we’ve got something like this going on and we’re playing a football game?’
“There are all kinds of memories. They are right there.”
When Ravens 360-pound DT Tony Siragusa learned that Giants TE Pete Mitchell was voted the Super Bowl’s sexiest player by an online dating service, he said he felt he should have gotten a longer look.
“People just haven’t seen me in the right clothes,” he said.
Ravens LB Ray Lewis, who went to high school in nearby Lakeland, Fla., and played college ball at Miami, said he hadn’t had the opportunity to play in his home state until September’s game against the Dolphins.
“The closest I’d ever come to playing in Florida was in Jacksonville,” Lewis said.
Huh?
Oh.
Ravens kicker Matt Stover got the respect of his teammates in a unique way this season, with Siragusa helping prepare Stover’s concentration.
“Goose gets in my ear at practice and tries to throw my off my game,” Stover said. “One time when I was kicking, he pulled his pants down and gave me a big moon shine. If I can handle that, I can handle anything. And I nailed it.
“He said, ‘OK, I give up.'”
Stover, who led the NFL with 135 points this season, has at times carried the Ravens’ offense.
“You know how they say kickers are not part of the team until they kick, and they better make that kick?” Ravens S Rod Woodson said. “Well, Matt is part of the team.”