Original subtitles

We make the decision to make a change at Head Coach.

This was a difficult decision. We felt awful.

You know, it's been great. It's been fun.

The people of Tampa have been outstanding.

We've had great fan support.

We loved Tony. Tony was great to us,

but we had to make a change.

We talked to a number of people.

We had a long search that went round and round.

The big tuna at the time or the big fish, as you will,

that you wanted to catch was Bill Parcells.

All the speculation focuses on the Tuna.

Bill Parcells has been rumored to be heading down to Tampa Bay

for the past two years.

At the time, you know,

Bill Parcells was larger than life.

One of the best coaches of all time.

It'd be getting like Bill Belichick in his prime.

His success was undeniable.

We pursued Bill Parcells.

We had an agreement with Bill Parcells.

Contract in hand signed on the desk.

It was ready to go, but Bill changed his mind.

Every time we'd meet with him after

he had decided he's not going to do it,

he would kind of give the impression

you could see it in his face. He'd struggle.

He'd say, okay, maybe let me call my guys.

We weren't going to give up.

And so we continued, even though he had said no,

we thought maybe he's going to change his mind.

We called Bill up and said, "Bill, we want to talk to you."

He was driving, I think, down to Florida at the time.

And he said, I'll meet you at exit 54

or whatever it was at Denny's.

You know, and that's how Bill was.

This is the first time we've met him in person.

It's exciting to meet Bill Parcells, a legendary coach.

We walk in to Denny's, going to sit down.

There's like a lamp hanging over the table.

Bill knocks his head against the lamp.

Slightly embarrassed, sits down.

We have lunch with him.

Tried to see whether he'd change his mind.

We pushed and pushed and pushed.

You know that point where someone says,

I'm just not doing it.

It's a little disheartening

because you kind of knew on the inside,

kind of felt this was our opportunity.

And we felt as though we were running out of time.

It was a big disappointment.

But Parcells spurned this franchise twice.

The first time around with Parcells was the year

that Culverhouse said, I felt jilted at the altar.

We're alive at Buccaneer Place.

Hugh Culverhouse, the owner of the Buccaneers,

is in the process of announcing the new head coach,

Bill Parcells.

I called him at 10 o'clock last night,

at his residence at his request.

And he advised me that he had had a change of heart.

So I say we've now feel

as though we've been jilted at the altar.

I've been jilted at the altar.

For what it's worth...

There's no honeymoon.

And this is the first time that Parcells

leaves the Bucs at the altar.

So now we have to move on and start our search over,

which is what we did back in the 2002 season.

We had an interest in Steve Spurrier.

We thought we had a good chance and we're excited by him.

He ended up going to Washington.

I became intrigued by Marvin Lewis.

Let's keep humming.

I thought Marvin brought a lot to the table.

I thought Marvin was going to be a really good

head football coach in the league.

Marvin Lewis was the defensive coordinator of the Ravens.

We didn't fire Tony Dungy

to hire the same defensive minded coach.

We were looking for someone that had more of

an offensive mind or had a track record

from an offensive side of the football.

Marvin Lewis is getting what many thought he long deserved.

The Ravens defensive coordinator is to receive a contract offer

from the Tampa Bay Bucs to be their new head coach.

All of a sudden they're starting to be reporting

that Marvin was going to be our next head coach.

The Bucs are ready to commit to Marvin Lewis.

ESPN.com's John Clayton reports that

the Ravens defensive coordinator will get an offer by tonight.

Unfortunately, I think Rich at the time felt that we were

going to hire Marvin Lewis.

Early today, the Glazers informed McKay

they would not authorize the hiring of Lewis.

Lewis's agent says he feels badly that Marvin

was the victim of what appears to be

a power struggle between the Glazers and McKay.

That was what led to the first crack in the relationship with Rich McKay.

It's always an unusual time in this league

when change happens and it certainly was

in that off season.

A little friction now between us and Rich.

We decided to take the search on ourselves

and Rich was not as much part of the process going forward.

So we just kind of picked up the ball ourselves

and just started setting up interviews.

Which led us to Mariucci.

We had good a meeting with him.

We were also very interested in Nick Saban.

Butch Davis had just come off a monster contract.

And when we talked to Nick's agent,

he says he wanted Butch Davis money.

We just, you know, listen, this guy hasn't done anything

in the NFL up until this point.

That point is like, if we're going to pay Butch Davis money,

we're going to get the guy and that's...

- John Gruden. - John Gruden.

Good evening everyone.

Tonight, the Patriots against the Oakland Raiders

in the AFC semi-finals

and the snow is coming down and it's a winter wonderland

in this Foxborough Stadium.

I'm sitting there watching that snowy night,

knowing that our only chance for John Gruden is

if they didn't win that playoff game.

I'm head coach of the Raiders

and we're playing New England in a blizzard

and we're going to beat the Patriots.

The game is coming to the end,

it's a close game, and I will never forget

the puddles of sweat in my hands

knowing what was potentially on the line

the result of that game.

Patriot first down at the Raider 41 yard line

with a minute and 50 to play.

They need a field goal.

What's it showing, blitz?

Here he is bearing down on Brady,

goes the fumble!

Beaker dives on the ball.

It's hard for me to talk about that game.

The Raiders have the ball,

Charles Woodson came on a corner blitz.

But that was the end.

There was no doubt that it was a fumble

and according to even Walt Cullman,

the referee in the game, it was a fumble.

The play is going to be reviewed though, Blake.

He does bring it forward, but that's not to pass the ball.

He pumped it.

And then obviously the league called in

and said that was an incomplete pass.

After reviewing the play,

the quarterback's arm was going forward.

It is an incomplete.

All right, Patriots retain the ball.

You talk about shooting a Goodyear blimp out of the sky.

It's been demoralizing to the Raiders.

That's what they did to the emotions of the Raiders

and the franchise and the fans.

Snap, wall down, kick is up.

Patriots win! Patriots win!

I was really upset how the season ended

and you lose on a tuck rule game

and then your contract gets all wormy and screwed up.

I mean, you're worried about which direction

your career is going and then all of a sudden

like a light, man,

everything changed and it happens

so fast it's hard to believe.

So much swirling speculation.

The media speculation is there might be some friction

between him and Al Davis.

And there was a standoff on his contract.

John was a young, dynamic,

super successful coach, offensive minded.

Me and my brothers were masterful in this negotiation.

Everyone assumed we were hiring Mariucci.

Unbeknownst to anybody else,

we were not interested in hiring Steve Mariucci.

At this moment, the outside world thinks the Buccaneers

are going to hire Steve Mariucci

and we felt that if that's what the world thought,

that's what Al Davis thought.

When everyone woke up the next day,

then it was going to get out there

that Mariucci wasn't coming,

it would loosen our leverage with John Gruden.

We have one night here where Al Davis thinks

we're signing Steve Mariucci

and then he would have the fear that

John would not do a new contract

and the next year he would leave to go to San Francisco.

John Gruden goes across the bay to your arch rivals,

the 49ers, because that's probably

what will end up happening if we hire Steve Mariucci.

So I called him up.

It was relatively late at night and I said to him,

listen, before we go forward with what we're about to do,

I just figured I should give you one more phone call

and see if there's something we can do.

He told me, "Yes, I will do something."

Now, Al asked the price

that he thought we'd probably hang up the phone.

Ton of draft picks.

They wanted Warren Sapp.

Not happening, wanted a lot of money.

We negotiated back and forth and we said,

but we got sign this tonight.

And it's now or never.

Al was stuck in what he wanted for compensation,

two ones, two twos, eight million dollars.

Giving up two first round draft picks,

two second round draft picks and eight million dollars,

which was unheard of at that point.

That had never been done before.

I got traded.

John, we didn't talk to John.

He hadn't talked to John.

The only person I'd ever called after 11 o'clock

at night was my friend, Mr. Davis,

and he says, do you want to talk to the Glazers

about the Tampa Bay job?

I'm just thinking I better talk to the Buccaneers

because I may not have any place to go.

So I called John up,

it's the middle of the night now on the East Coast.

John, love you to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Interested in doing it?

In John Gruden fashion,

"Damn right, I want to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers."

We said, but we got to sign this tonight.

We sent him over a document that we wrote up ourselves.

And I have to sign this contract somehow.

Our agent had got us a fax machine

as a gift like the year before.

We had never used it.

I didn't even know where the paper goes,

thank God for my wife at two o'clock in the morning.

And my brothers were somewhere where they didn't have

a fax machine, so the contract had to go to me

and then I had to get it to my brothers.

I mean, this was out of a TV show,

what was happening at three in the morning.

We figured this fax machine out

and we signed a contract in the middle of the night

on a fax machine.

We're very, very happy and we want to introduce John Gruden,

our new head coach.

It's like to say thank you very much.

I woke up this morning,

I had no idea how I got here,

but I would like to thank Mr. Glazer

and obviously Bryan and Joel Glazer

for finding a way to get me here in Tampa Florida.

I couldn't believe that I was a coach of the Raiders

the night before, here I am in Tampa.

And I just met Malcolm Glazer for 15 minutes.

I really don't have an exact feel for his vision.

It was just a lot happening, man, in a short period of time.

Our coaches are a little bit in doubt

as to what's going to happen to them.

This happened so sudden,

but nothing's going to happen to them.

I wasn't allowed to bring one assistant coach with me.

Who am I going to hire as a line coach?

Who am I going to get as a running back?

Who am I going to get to help me with the quarterbacks?

So I was a little bit

afraid to say the least,

but I watched the tapes.

Are you kidding me?

I knew how good they were.

I knew how good Sapp was.

Barber, Lynch, Rice, Brooks,

I knew we had the makings of something great.

And all I can guarantee is a lot of hard work

and effort in trying to put the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

into championship form. Thank you very much.

Must have been the summer of 1983 season.

My dad came here coaching running backs,

and that was still the greatest year of my life.

I was a backup quarterback at Dayton.

I got to go to training camp.

I got to get in some of the drills

and throw passes to James Wilder, Jerry Eckwood.

John Gruden, I've been knowing all my life

ever since he was about 16, 17 years old

because his daddy was one of my assistant coaches.

And I remember Doug Williams coming up to me one day saying,

"You better put some pepper on that ball.

You're going to get somebody killed."

It was awesome.

That was the greatest time of my life.

That's what really, I think,

fueled me to want to be a coach and really pour it on

and try to be as good as I could be someday.

The Bucs give up two number one and two number two draft choices

plus $8 million in order to sign Gruden, a Tampa native.

I remember when Gruden first got the job.

He called me into his office and he said,

"We're going to win a Super Bowl this year.

But first of all, we're going to declare war on our defense."

How's Monte Kiffen and Ronde Barber and Warren Sapp

and John Lynch and Simeon Rice,

how are they going to stop blast off to Joker Wright,

X-Short, 22X, drive, half-back burst?

So we finally put the pads on

and we go to a period where we run the ball every single play.

Just a run drill.

We're going to hand the ball off.

No matter what.

It's a physical run period only

and on the first play...

Gruden said, "Brad, we're going to get them right here.

We're declaring war and here we go."

I was underneath center. I drew a reverse fake.

I roll out to my left.

I throw a little pass in a flat and he scores a touchdown.

Boy, it pissed those guys off on defense

and I'm running down there, "Oh yeah!"

Ooh, I like that.

God damn.

Oh, love that.

John Lynch.

What the hell is this?

Who in the hell he think he is?

So I turn the group and I say, yo man,

if you scared, say you scared.

He say scared.

They've been running boot up your ass

for the last three years.

Turned to two heads, Greg Spires and Simeon,

and said, I said, you got boot and you got boot.

The rest of us, let's go.

Nah, I might just go crazy.

Lose my mind.

It was like a mutiny.

Defense was fierce.

I loved it.

I think Sapp was pissed, but then I think he appreciated it.

Hey, I'm not going to be a real patient guy now.

Dance the red right.

The X always goes away from the call, man.

- He gave everybody... - Brash.

- Shit talking. - A kick in the ass.

I need a Z. God dang it, Daryl.

He was wilding at that point.

We got the Tasmanian Devil with us now.

Crazy bastard.

We knew the arrogance with which he operated.

We didn't really want him in our room.

You go coach the offense, you go fix those guys.

Why shift the green right open?

It was about everybody being accountable,

especially offensively.

You always run the what?

The what? The over?

I knew that our offense had a long, long way to go

on the tapes that I had seen.

There were a lot of things that had to go on

in order for us to have success.

So John was always trying to stoke that fire.

We're working all three levels.

Fullback, you're in the flat. You got me, Mike?

You guys remember that, fullbacks? All right.

My agent he calls me up and says,

"Hey, do your thing this weekend."

I'm like, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Coach Gruden doesn't know how to use you."

So basically this is a tryout.

Six years in the league already.

Holy Toledo. There you go, A-Train.

Full stop. Airborn!

That is a Pro-Bowl stop.

He's going to the Pro-Bowl.

That is no fullback.

He's more than a powerback.

I think he was a six-time Pro-Bowl

but I think he was selected as a fullback.

People need to wrap their mind around that a little bit.

I don't know.

I think Mike wanted to be the featureback deep down.

He probably wanted to be the guy.

Mike Alstott is a man. He's a champion.

And once he starts feeling like the A-Train,

that's what gets this team fired up.

The most popular Buccaneer maybe of all time.

I don't think he was really a John Gruden fan,

but I can't really speak for him.

Like that, you would have to ask him,

but don't believe he was that... jumping in for that.

There was no connection.

Oh. Oh, really?

There was really no connection.

From my playing days with him, I could assume.

One of the best offensive threats

that I've ever played with and against.

The A-Train was unstoppable then.

If you don't know who he is, kids,

now go watch his highlights.

I think Mike felt pigeonholed a little bit at times,

not being the go-to guy.

He's not the first player that felt that way, I promise you.

You just have a little bit of a built-up aggression because,

you know, just got to prove somebody else wrong.

I got a lot of friends out there.

Okay. I don't need any friends here.

I remember telling the defense, you guys are really good.

You guys have done a hell of a job here,

but if you're so good, why don't you start scoring points?

"Great defenses score.

I want nine touchdowns out of you guys."

And then he looks at me.

"You've never won Defensive Player of the Year,"

so I go in his office and I say,

"Coach, I'm not a selfish player."

You got to love your teammate.

I'm going to play the game to get my teammates better

and whatever success I have, I have, but it's about the team.

And he said, "Man, shut up with all that blah, blah, blah."

I said, "What?"

And he said, "If you're elevating your play

"to be the best defensive player in this league,

"by who you are naturally, you're going to elevate

everybody else's play to come along with you."

Patience!

I think the great players, the gold jacket type players

that I've been around, they respond to constructive criticism.

This wasn't something that I pulled out of my ass.

I wasn't just trying to speak off the hook.

I watched the tapes.

He's Tony Dungy, reincarnated as a sailor

that wants to go 150 miles an hour on offense.

If Tony's here, Gruden's here.

And Coach Gruden was able to push buttons of mine

that Coach Dungy probably would have never been able to do.

You know, John took something that Tony built,

but he challenged us to take it up a notch.

And I got up and I said, "I appreciate your coach."

He said, "Now go score nine touchdowns as a defense."

Which is crazy.

Nobody gets nine touchdowns on defense.

We got to score, he challenged us,

he challenged us, we got to score.

It didn't happen week one. We lost week one at the house.

Hey, we don't know what the fuck we're doing.

There's a touchdown on the interception.

I remember walking off with Gruden looking at him,

I'm like, ah.

But the next week we went to Baltimore.

That was kind of our way to jump start our season as a defense.

We had never had a challenge that we didn't meet.

All day, Brooks, he could go, he might go.

He will go all the way!

So now we're cooking with fish grease.

Our defense got some turnovers

and shut down the Rams on Monday Night Football.

Warner throws, intercepted Brooks!

Two weeks in a row.

The defense was rolling.

It was clicking on a different level

than it ever had because of John Gruden.

I remember that ball up in the air

and I grabbed it and you got to understand.

Brooks, his voice is almost like my wife's.

He a doon-doon, I just flick the ball.

I mean, I know he's going to catch it.

Intercepted!

And when I'm getting stuck to the ground,

I see he got it, like, oh, this is going to be fun.

Touchdown Derrick Brooks!

Four games in a row, the Bucs have scored a defensive touchdown.

He just ringboarded us.

It just gave us a whole new life and a whole new challenge

that John put to us that we had never had before.

And this crowd is primed,

a late afternoon comfortable day in Philadelphia.

One of the most pivotal moments in John Gruden's first year

was going back up to the House of Horrors,

Veteran stadium against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Philadelphia Eagles had been the hurdle we couldn't get over.

That's the measuring stick game, you know,

how good is this Gruden guy?

What difference is this guy going to make?

Under pressure, McNabb under.

Oh, ball knocked out! Loose ball!

Picked up by Brooks!

Touchdown, Tampa Bay!

The Bucs are better on both sides of the football

than the team that the Eagles have knocked out

of the playoffs the last couple years.

You run into teams that just seemingly have your number

and it doesn't matter what you're doing

against everyone else.

I got sacked five times.

Had my ribs cracked.

It was living hell.

That was an eye-opening, bone-crushing loss.

It was humiliating.

The Bucs had every reason to think they were going

to end this hex, but it doesn't happen.

He's in, touchdown!

I was so confident that we'll see them again

that I'm going on the field

and I'm telling them we'll be back.

We'll be back.

Trust me, we'll be back.

And so we knew if we're going to win a Super Bowl,

we knew it was going to have to go through Philadelphia.

They had been our nemesis.

We get on the bus and I want to explode at this point

because how do we keep losing this game to them?

John Gruden gets on this bus.

He said "Captain"...

"I got 'em."

We ain't got shit.

I remember telling Sapp though,

we're going to come back here one more time this year.

And I promise you, we're going to get after their ass.

We're going to get after these guys.

I started working on Philadelphia on the plane ride

on the way home that night.

I had this thing where every four games I would assign

a different coach, kind of like he was the head coach.

And I remember when Marinelli did his presentation,

our D-line coach,

one of the best coaches I've ever been around.

He had this thing about "pound the rock"

and the rock is the opponent.

It may never, ever break,

but you got to believe that it's going to break.

If I toss a hammer to Lynch.

Stay in the moment.

Pound the rock.

If I toss a hammer over there to Sapp.

It's hot. We're going to pound the rock.

Simeon.

It's cold. We're going to pound the rock.

We freaking pound it every day in practice.

If we all start pounding that rock,

that opponent together, we will pound the rock

and we will crush that opponent.

Just think about the rock and pound it.

So we had a rock.

Pound the rock! Pound the rock!

It was brought everywhere.

I mean, it was brought on away trips,

spend its time in our locker room

and kind of hard to walk by it without noticing it.

So that entire season, that rock spent a lot of time with us.

We kept pounding the rock.

We kept running the ball.

We kept throwing the ball.

Defense played great.

Get that train going.

Get that A-train going.

260 pounds playing running back.

I've never seen people bounce off him like that.

He went from right to left to right to left.

And it was one anvil smash after another.

Mike was a great competitor.

Phenomenal.

Pound the rock! Pound the rock!

You got to believe in each other.

You got to believe in the system.

And then you got to get it done.

But you got to keep pounding. You cannot quit.

Brad ended up leading the NFC in passing efficiency.

We're in the shark tank now. We all sharks.

One thing that was different

was you could see the way John put that offense together.

And, you know, he needed a quarterback

to pull the triggers.

Brad Johnson was definitely that.

Throw is out... Caught!

Brad Johnson.

Touchdown.

He was everything that huddle.

Perfect guy for that team.

Brad Johnson throws the pass.

Caught! Touchdown! Tampa Bay!

Brad Johnson has thrown five touchdown passes.

Great call. Great call!

Keyshawn had no fear, none, zero.

I loved his swagger.

But the combination of Rice and Sapp,

that pocket would collapse quickly.

That quarterback would have to move.

He'd run right into Simeon.

They were awesome together.

Let's go to what we do. Dominate on three.

- One, two, three. - Dominate.

I came from a team that didn't love ball.

We had some great players,

but as a collective, we didn't love ball.

I'm around guys now, legitimately love ball.

Michael Vick was on fire, and we completely shut him down.

John had complete command of this team.

I can't even start to throw it.

Vick lets it go

and it's tipped and picked off by Jackson.

Let's go! Let's operate.

The defense may have been similar,

but on the offensive side of the ball,

this was a completely new team.

Touchdown, Tampa Bay!

John went out and got this talent

with Rich McKay and built something special.

I thought our defense all week. You kept your cool.

They talked about the great Michael Vick.

He's a great talent.

How are you going to stop Michael Vick?

How are you going to stop him?

Not one word was said about

how somebody's going to stop this defense.

Remember that.

The greatness of this defense is ahead.

We're going to finish strong.

John Gruden with a franchise record 12 victories,

and he has the Bucs winners of the south

with a first round bye,

all rested and ready to go against the 49ers.

To you Jurevicius!

You, Joe Jurevicius!

As an offense, we've been in Gruden's system for a while,

but it took us that while to understand

exactly what Gruden wanted from us.

And we struck lightning in a bottle.

Mike Alstott gets the ball, runs left.

Touchdown, Tampa Bay.

And Brad Johnson and Jurevicius

had a great connection.

Caught! Touchdown, Tampa Bay.

Touchdown, Joe Jurevicius.

We had a couple of interceptions.

We were cooking, man.

We beat San Francisco up, man.

We beat them good.

Now we've got to have our best week of football.

And again, it's about us, nobody else.

This is what we've all been waiting for.

Philadelphia Eagles at the Vet.

This is our time now.

It's playoff football.

Things are going really well for us.

And then life kind of hits the pause button on us.

My wife Meagan was pregnant.

And the morning after we played the San Francisco 49ers

and the playoffs woke up to,

oh my God, my water broke and it was a little bit early

and got over to the hospital and Michael was born.

And, you know, typically when you hear a baby cry,

gets wiped off, you get to hold your baby.

Michael was just kind of whisked off right away.

So just kind of already knew at that point

that this wasn't the traditional birth.

Born three weeks premature as Tampa prepared

for the NFC championship game,

Michael Jurevicius is still in the hospital.

His father stayed at his side.

Michael was given 72 hours to live.

Going from a playoff high

to here's my first kid with my wife.

And now you're going to have a kid

that might not make it 72 hours.

Just kind of hoping that he would have a shot.

You just wanted to wrap your arms around him

and try to comfort him as much as you can as a player.

Your heart sank for the guy.

It was a dire situation.

I went in to John Gruden's office

just to kind of talk it out with them.

I didn't know whether I was coming or going.

I didn't know what I was doing.

He just told me go be with your wife.

During the week it was terrible.

Nobody expected Joe to be there.

Couldn't even imagine.

I asked myself if I would have played.

I honestly don't know.

And I don't know if he knew.

We just wanted Joe to know that whether he come

play with us in Philly or decided to stay back here

with his wife, we were going to support him.

Michael had a disease called sialidosis.

The easiest way to describe what sialidosis

is, it wasn't properly functioning cells.

At the end of the week, doctor came in

and said that you should think about going.

That it wasn't until my mother-in-law,

my wife said you need to go.

If he beat those 72-hour odds,

I figured the least that I could do is

toughen my ass up and do something.

I just kind of looked at him and prayed and hoped

for the best that it was going to be the right decision.

I remember landing in Philly,

the first person I saw was Warren Sapp.

And he came up to me

and he asked how...

How things were going.

I don't know.

I said, "Warren, I don't know."

That big son of a bitch grabbed me and kissed me on my forehead

and said, "I got you, you're going to be okay."

He was one of the guys that when I needed

a kind of a pat on the ass

and let's get going, he told me he got me

and it started to build a little bit of confidence.

I grabbed my playbook and for the first time all week

started to kind of study the game plan

and I remember John asking me if I wanted to play.

Joe and I talked a lot of trash on the field.

He would give me a hard time.

He wouldn't say, "Hey coach, he'd say, hey..."

He had a cuss word. He'd call me, he'd call me names.

He call me, hey dickhead, try not to fuck up the game today, moron.

He would say stuff like that.

And he said, "Hey dickhead, I'm ready to go."

Just like he normally does.

I couldn't believe it.

We were underdogs, Coach Gruden had told the team

that Philadelphia had already packed their bags

and had their equipment trucks ready to go to San Diego.

I remember some of the announcers of the game,

they say, you know, in the unlikely event you win,

here's where you're going to be interviewed.

Philadelphia Eagles were so sure they were going to win.

I never really thought that we would get over Philadelphia

because there was this myth in the air about the cold

and we could only play in certain temperatures

because if it dips below a certain degrees

we was going to falter.

The last game being played in Veteran stadium

so the Philly fans had this big tribute that they wanted to do.

I remember stepping out onto the Vet field

in typical Philly fashion.

A lot of chirping going on.

We're just confident that this was our time

to overcome Philadelphia.

I told the players, we got a great team here.

We got a great game plan, we've had a great week of practice.

We're going to kick their ass.

John's got him.

If John can score us some points,

the Philadelphia Eagles ain't got a snowball's chance in hell.

What an opportunity to silence these fools.

Let's go. We've been waiting for this.

We've been preparing for this for all this year.

We're ready.

Mitchell...

Down to the 25.

Second play of the game.

Touchdown, 11 yards.

We're down 7-0.

Oh, no. Here we go again.

Walked off the field. I said, huh?

That one won't beat us, fellas.

That 7 won't beat us today. Huh? You hear me?

And they all looked at me like, "We good, we good."

All right, we good then.

He told us, don't panic, because I got 'em.

And defense, do your part.

Don't panic.

We're going to win this game.

Coming up here to Philadelphia,

playing against this Philadelphia Eagles team,

which has dominated them the last four times

they've played 'em.

We were struggling to get yards, to get a first down.

And there's a particular play.

359 ex sluggo...

Slowly over the course of the season,

this offense has been getting better and better.

I remember when I caught that ball

and I got to the 50-yard line,

I can actually feel my lungs fill up with lactic acid,

almost like they caught on fire. I felt them burning.

And at that point, he's off to the races.

It's caught, Jurevicius!

35, to the 40, to the 45, to the 50!

Go!

The other sideline, go!

35, 30!

Jurevicius to the 20! 15, 10!

I couldn't believe it, man.

He ran like I've never seen Joe run.

And it was kind of like,

"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."

He out there looking like Calvin Johnson,

he looking like Megatron.

Ran for 70 yards.

I can still hear Gene Deckerhoff.

I have not seen Joe Jurevicius run that fast.

Joe Jurevicius run that fast ever.

You go, Joe, you go, Joe! You go, Joe, you go, Joe!

I remember kind of taking a sigh of relief.

And it was cool.

Weird time, but cool.

That's the play that sparked our team.

Alstott again.

Touchdown, Tampa Bay!

I have to go back to Joe Jurevicius.

For that young man to have that kind of a play...

I just can't imagine what his emotions are right now.

Asked John Gruden if he was worried about

Jurevicius missing practice.

And John said, "I'm not worried about Joe."

This crowd is stunned right now.

You either feel pressure or you apply pressure.

The next thing you know, we caught fire.

Quick throw, Johnson!

Touchdown, Tampa Bay!

Brad Johnson, to Keyshawn Johnson,

and the Bucs are back on top.

It's the fourth quarter.

We have a 20-10 lead.

And Donovan's got the ball and the Eagles are moving.

And Donovan found a way to be superhuman.

Sapp had him dead to rights.

Greg Spires had him dead to rights.

Simeon had him dead to rights.

Escape, set up, make a play.

Like, dramatically, big plays moved them down the field.

He had great pocket awareness, McNabb.

And he was driving the Bucs crazy.

And so it was happening.

And we had a lead that would have been cut

to an uncomfortable position.

I have a thing called BTSD, Bucs Traumatic Stress Disorder.

And if you've been a Bucs fan long enough,

you know what I'm talking about.

And you know if we let them in the end zone,

it's not going to end well.

It was that time in the game where the rubber meets the road.

You know, I was getting a little tight

because they were marching.

And certainly they were a good team

and we were in a hostile environment.

Ronde's just all over the field throughout that game.

Ronde Barber, who's been making plays all day long.

But I haven't seen anybody play better

than Ronde Barber has today.

It was the entire game.

It was every screen fit. It was every tackle.

It was every time he hit the quarterback.

It was sack fumbles. He was all over the place.

It was probably one of the better games

I've ever seen from a corner

in the National Football League, arguably the best.

One of the most spectacular

individual performances I've been a part of.

Those moments are dominated by men that are ready to seize it.

I think Ronde always had a little chip on his shoulder.

You know, his brother was this highly touted

running back, Tiki,

playing in a much bigger market of New York.

And here is Ronde, a third round pick in Tampa, Florida.

Ronde didn't have that personality

per se like Warren Sapp.

But he just went out there and every game

you could count on Ronde Barber.

He might have had the most football intelligence

of anybody playing in the league at that time.

He examines film like

he's an archeologist looking at bones or something.

Man, I just fell in love with his play style.

When I first got to the Bucs, I was 28 years old.

When I replaced Herm Edwards as the secondary coach,

Ronde was about to become a free agent.

And I probably got a little bit over aggressive

expressing my view of how important it was to retain him.

We went to dinner at a steakhouse.

I wanted him to know that I would put my hand in the pile

and make sure that he was successful.

He made the decision to come back.

We really delved into dominating the nickel position,

redefining it.

Really, that's how he made his mark.

In 2001, I made a name for myself, finally.

Defensive Back of the Year, lead the league in interceptions.

And by the end of 2002, I wasn't going to the Pro Bowl.

I wasn't getting recognition.

It's as if they had forgotten the player

that I had just proven myself to be.

It's first and goal.

Ronde's acting like he's blitzing.

Ronde had set that up a few plays before.

The one and only Ronde Barber.

He's unbelievable at setting the bait.

Man, I stepped into this B-gap like I was gonna blitz.

McNabb saw it out of the corner of his eye.

And he thought I was gonna blitz.

And so he set up his own play.

- Who does that? - I wasn't blitzing.

I was just playing cover two.

It's intercepted at the 10 to the 20.

He's gone.

Picked off by Barber.

Barber to the 25, to the 30.

I looked in the gap, looked back at Antonio

because I knew he was gonna be sitting there

and the ball hit me in the hands.

It's that simple.

All I had to do was run on a bum-ass knee,

but I had to run a long way.

A lot of people don't know the story,

but Ronde had torn his PCL.

If you watch that film close,

he's kind of galloping because his gait's not right.

Right past Andy Reid and the rest of the Eagles

who were in absolute disbelief.

Barber to the 30. Nobody's gonna touch him.

- Ronde Barber. - Going down that sideline.

That is the quietest I've ever seen that stadium.

It's the most beautiful sound ever.

You just took all the air out of there.

It was a wrap. Wasn't no coming back.

Wasn't nothing.

Like a funeral parlor. It's so quiet.

Ten, five, touchdown Tampa Bay!

My play has been validated.

At that point, I was like, okay,

I'm gonna let everybody know who I am,

and so I started pointing my back.

It was me telling everybody else to fuck off.

But in a lot of ways, he's doing this

because he had the Buccaneer fan base

and the organization on his back all the way.

From those 1976ers, the original Buccaneer fans.

That's the greatest play in Buc history.

Holy shit, we just did this.

Just sealed it, right?

It's done.

We're going to San Diego.

Other than my three kids coming out,

that's still the greatest memory in my life.

The Buccaneers are the champions of the NFC.

How about that?

We're going to the Super Bowl.

All the emotions of Philly beating us all came out.

We shut it down today!

We shut the Vet down! No more Vet!

Man!

- Love you. - Love you back, baby.

I've been there since 1993.

Been called the Yucks, been booed and laughed at.

And to come that far, knock on the door,

but never go away.

Get our coach fired who we loved and find a way to get there.

We've done it. We haven't finished it.

We've gotten over one hump already

and that's the NFC championship game.

That was it. That was the moment you knew

you were going to be in the Super Bowl.

Everybody always trying to pack their bags, we out of here.

California. Head west, my son!

And that game, to me, is also the most satisfying game I ever saw.

There was something so magical about that

because it wasn't just one game against the Eagles.

This was like going to see

Rocky 1, Rocky 2, Rocky 3.

We went up there, we got our ass kicked.

We went up there, got our ass kicked.

We went and beat the Eagles

when it mattered the most.

- Hip hip! - Hooray!

- Hip hip! - Hooray!

Super Bowl! Super Bowl! Super Bowl!

John Gruden, take one. Mark.

Greatest Buc of all time?

I got to say it's, it's...

I got to say it's Ronde Barber.

The son of a bitch played for 25 years, man.

He played with broken arms and broken knees

and he played free safety.

He played nickel. He played corner.

He covered kicks.

Barber. Give me Barber.