"We're a lot better than the (statistics)," said fullback Mike Alstott, who had just 15 yards on 10 attempts. "Our line has improved so much in the second half of the season and so has the rushing game. We can run it when we have to, and I think we proved that again tonight."

Whether or not the Tampa Bay rushing attack has improved to the point that Alstott claimed it has is debatable. What can't be denied, though, is that Jon Gruden rarely abandons the run, like many of his peers, no matter how futile that part of the Tampa Bay attack often seems.

And because of his mind-set, the Bucs aren't as lopsided as other teams in the running game ratio, and are now the world champions.

	Pittman

Led by tailback Michael Pittman, a disappointment most of the year, Tampa Bay hammered out 150 yards on 42 carries in their 48-21 demolition derby of a victory over the Oakland Raiders. The surprising Pittman rushed for 124 yards on 29 carries, his first 100-yard outing since October of 2000, and 34 yards more than he had in any previous game this season.

Many in the Bucs organization have conceded that Pittman, a five-year pro, has been nothing like the back they thought they were getting when he was signed as an unrestricted free agent last summer. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse, with gigantic upper arms and thick thighs, the Tampa Bay coaches will tell you Pittman runs too soft, misreads too many holes, and simply doesn't knock defenders backward.

There were no such deficiencies on display, however, Sunday night.

Against an Oakland defense that ranked third against the run this season, had surrendered just 90.8 yards a game and featured the imposing interior tandem of Sam Adams and John Parrella, the former Fresno State standout ran like a Tasmanian Devil.

The results weren't always attractive -- in fact, 16 of his carries netted 2 yards or fewer, and he had 10 carries of a yard or less -- but Pittman did help erode the bigger Oakland defenders. Three of his runs were good for 19 yards or more and Pittman twice set up touchdowns with long runs.

"You beat on people long enough," Pittman said, "and sooner or later you are going to grind them down. Their big people were sucking wind, I can tell you, and they obviously didn't think we could run it like that."

	“	I don't want to get into trouble by giving up game plan stuff, but, sure, we thought the 'toss' stuff would be there for us. And once we found out it was, we just kept coming back to it, again and again. ”
		— Bucs RB Michael Pittman

That was, perhaps, because they bought into the biggest misconception about Gruden. For years, the Bucs coach has been miscast at a passing-game guru. Truth be told, Gruden wants to run the ball hard between the tackles in every game, to set up the pass, but also to establish physical superiority.

Given the shortcomings of the Tampa Bay offensive line -- assistant coach Bill Muir ought to get a fat raise for what he accomplished with the unit in the last few weeks -- it might be tempting to simply sell out to the pass. But Gruden hammers the ball inside, sometimes just to run it, as was the case at Philadelphia in the NFC title game victory last week.

In that game, the Bucs ran 32 times for a measly 49 yards, but they never even considered eschewing the running game. They averaged a miniscule 1.5 yards a carry and did not have a run of more than 9 yards, but Gruden simply refused to quit pounding away at the Eagles front seven.

"That's the easy thing to do," said left guard Kerry Jenkins. "But as long as you keep at it, the defense has to stay honest, and you don't ever want to get one-dimensional in this game. So people can talk about a lack of production in our running game, but we don't care, because the results keep showing that we need to keep running it."

Still, it's hard to ignore the fact Tampa Bay was the fifth-worst running club in the league in 2002, that no team that ever ranked below No. 26 in rushing offense had won a previous Super Bowl, or that the Bucs ran for 100 yards or more collectively only six times in 2002.

On Sunday night, though, the Raiders found it hard to ignore the Bucs.

"They just kicked our asses," said weak-side linebacker Eric Barton. "How else can you describe it?"

Beyond the performance of Pittman, who gained just 718 rushing yards in the regular season, the most surprising aspect of the Tampa Bay design was the emphasis on running at the flanks of the Raiders defense. By unofficial count, nine of Pittman's 29 rushes were "toss" plays and so were three of Alstott's 10 runs.

Clearly, the blueprint called for taking advantage of the Raiders' smallish defensive ends, and it worked. On a 23-yard run in the first quarter, which set up a Martin Gramatica field goal, Pittman burst through a huge hole that was created when lead-blocker Alstott crushed end DeLawrence Grant.

"I don't want to get into trouble by giving up game plan stuff," said Pittman, "but, sure, we thought the 'toss' stuff would be there for us. And once we found out it was, we just kept coming back to it, again and again."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.