FAB 2. How Would The ‘98 Bucs Have Fared In The Playoffs?

“If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, every day would be Christmas,” said legendary Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp.

Sapp said that to me on many occasions since I’ve known him, which began in 1995 during his rookie year. That was my first year covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Sapp hated hypothetical, “what if?” questions, so he wasn’t the ideal candidate to participate in my exercise of taking a look back at the Bucs’ quirky 1998 campaign – an underachieving season – and wondering, “What if Tampa Bay had made the playoffs? What if Arizona had missed that fateful 52-yard field goal and the Bucs had gotten into the postseason with an 8-8 record and traveled to Dallas instead of the Cardinals?

As it turns out, the Bucs’ 1998 season would have two dramatic effects on the franchise the following season. The disappointment of the ’98 season would propel the team to new heights the following season as Tampa Bay won the NFC Central with an 11-5 record and made it to the NFC Championship Game where the Bucs lost at St. Louis, 11-6.

The ’98 season was also the beginning of the end of Trent Dilfer’s career in Tampa Bay. He fared no better in 1999 before a season-ending injury led to Shaun King’s rise as the team’s starting quarterback in 2000. His I’ll address that topic in Fab 3.

But let’s get back to the question at hand.

Under Tony Dungy the Bucs made playoff appearances in 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2001, and missed the postseason in ’98 by one game – or a game-winning field goal by Arizona against San Diego, as Tampa Bay did not control its playoff destiny in Week 17. Would the Bucs have done any damage if they had made the playoffs with a 9-7 record or sneaking into the postseason at 8-8 if the Cardinals had missed that late 52-yard field goal?

Former Bucs C Tony Mayberry – Photo by: Getty Images

“Coach Dungy was always preparing us for the fourth quarter of a game and the fourth quarter of the season,” Bucs center Tony Mayberry said. “We would have had a chance in the playoffs because we were built to grind it out at the end due to our grit. That was the kind of mentality that Coach Dungy had instilled in us.”

A look back at the team’s 8-8 record would show that Tampa Bay was 6-2 at home and 2-6 on the road. After five straight losses on the road, the Bucs finally prevailed away from Raymond James Stadium with a resounding 31-17 win at Chicago in Week 13. A devastating 21-16 loss at Washington in Week 16 was sandwiched in between the win against the Bears and a 35-0 shutout win at Cincinnati in Week 17.

Starting with that Bears game, the Bucs had gone 4-1 down the stretch and proved that the team could (finally) win on the road with a 2-1 record over the last month of the season.

“Hindsight is obviously what it is, but if we would have won five out of our five last games, certainly because our defense was playing so well,” Mayberry said. “It would have been a pretty interesting thing. It was a weird season. I guess you can say we underachieved because our defense was stellar, but it seemed like we could compete with anybody, especially with our defense.”

The Tampa Bay defense was led by three Pro Bowlers in defensive tackle Warren Sapp, middle linebacker Hardy Nickerson and weakside linebacker Derrick Brooks that year, but it just wasn’t as stout and dominating as it was the year before. Defensive end Chidi Ahanotu, who had recorded 10 sacks the previous season in helping the team reach the playoffs in 1997, battled a lingering shoulder injury and was placed on injured reserve after Week 4, which didn’t help Tampa Bay’s pass rush.

“Scott, I’m telling you this from my perspective, okay?” Ahanotu said. “I didn’t think we would have done any damage in the playoffs if we’d made it. It just wasn’t our year. I didn’t have much belief that we would have done damage if we made the playoffs. I didn’t even think we would make the playoffs. I was hoping we would for the success of the team, of course. Something was just off that year. We came off a great 1997 season, but there were a lot of quirks that year. We were just off.”

The 1998 season started with seven straight road games, including all five preseason contests, saw prized free agent receiver Bert Emanuel get hurt just minutes into his Buccaneers debut in a week loss at Minnesota, followed by Ahanotu’s season-ending shoulder injury. Uneven play by the Bucs defense, coupled with a struggling Dilfer helped dig a 4-7 hole that even a 4-1 run down the stretch proved to be too little too late.

Yet, the Bucs had some late-season momentum, according to the more optimistic Mayberry, in addition to some very valuable road playoff experience from the previous season’s 21-7 loss at Green Bay following Tampa Bay’s 20-10 Wild Card win over Detroit in the 1997 playoffs.

Former Bucs QB Trent Dilfer – Photo by: Getty Images

“There you go – absolutely,” Mayberry said. “I don’t know if we were even overwhelmed the year before going up to Green Bay. We had obviously played them up there a lot. They were a really good team. Let’s be honest. And the Packers were clicking. I really remember that game. That one sticks out for me because I did something to my back. I remember it was likely rainy snow, and it was really cold up there. I remember I had to sit on the sidelines with an ice pack on my back. I didn’t want to expose any of my skin to the cold. Imagine having an ice pack on your already frozen body. It was surreal how miserable I was at the time.

“But we had a little taste of the playoffs and the whole team had pretty much returned, and the young guys responded. Our expectations were high, and we underperformed, but there were so many things that went wrong that year that you couldn’t fix right away. There were all sorts of things happening at different times in ‘98. Some interceptions. We couldn’t run the ball well at times. We had some dropped passes. There was a sense of disappointment that year because it felt like we were better than that. It was tough because we had to grind and grind and grind during those times.”

After beating the Bengals in Cincinnati in the season finale, the 8-8 Bucs found out that they had been eliminated from the playoffs on the plane ride home from Tampa Bay due to Arizona’s 52-yard game-winning field goal against San Diego.

As fate would have it, Arizona, the sixth playoff seed in the NFC, prevailed in Dallas, 20-7 and would advance to Minnesota where it would play the 15-1 Vikings and lose 41-21. Atlanta would upset Minnesota in overtime the following week and advance to the Super Bowl where John Elway, Terrell Davis and Denver would prevail, 34-19.

Despite a 27-24, signature win against the Vikings earlier that year, which would be Minnesota’s lone regular season defeat that season, and its 4-1 finish, I don’t think the Bucs had what it took to advance in the playoffs that season. Defensively, I think Tampa Bay could have held its own against Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and the Cowboys, but the Cowboys defense had the clear advantage over the Dilfer and the Bucs’ passing game if Tampa Bay’s ground game would have been neutralized.

“Everybody talks about the one that got away,” Mayberry said. “You can’t say ‘What if?’ But if there was ever a season for it, that was it. If we got our foot in the door we could have made some noise. We were so up and down in games and I think that was the frustrating thing. Coach Dungy preached consistency, but it was different guys at different times that prevented that from happening. The margin for victory is so small. A play here or a play there, but you’ve seen enough football to know that, Scott. After all we went through that year, it would have been nice to make the playoffs.”

Former Bucs DT Warren Sapp – Photo by: Getty Images

In hindsight, it was best that the Bucs’ quirky 1998 season ended the way it did because the disappointment from that year fueled the team’s fire the following season, and Tampa Bay bounced back in a big way in 1999.

“It definitely left a bad taste in our mouths after the 1998 season,” Ahanotu said. “Sapp had the worst year of his career outside of his rookie season when he was trying to figure the game out. I was hurt that year. We barely missed going to the playoffs, it wasn’t like we had a 4-12 season, man.

“It was definitely a catalyst and propelled us to a whole new level in 1999. I can tell you to a man – at least on defense – that we were so focused. We were on another level. You couldn’t touch us. We were like a well-oiled machine. It was scary.”

The Bucs had a dominant defense the next year in 1999, recording 43 sacks – led by Sapp’s 12.5 – and 26 forced fumbles, 21 interceptions, recovering 13 fumbles, registering two pick-sixes and a safety. Tampa Bay had the No. 3 total defense, the No. 2 passing defense, the No. 5 rushing defense and the No. 3 scoring defense, allowing just 14.7 points per game in ’99.

The only thing standing in the way of a Super Bowl run in 1999 was the play of the quarterback position. Up next is the fall of Dilfer’s career in Tampa Bay.