| | Johnson and Johnson lead the way
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA -- Keyshawn Johnson slipped on a Terry Bradshaw
jersey, ran behind the Tampa Bay bench and celebrated with the few
Buccaneers fans willing to risk wearing team colors at Veterans
Stadium.
|  | | Keyshawn Johnson, left, had a big TD reception for the Bucs. |
The brash receiver predicted he would have a major impact on
Sunday's NFC championship game if given an opportunity, and Johnson
delivered with the go-ahead touchdown in a 27-10 victory over the
Philadelphia Eagles.
"The first time we played these guys, we made the mistakes,''
Johnson said, referring to Tampa Bay's 20-10 loss to the Eagles
during the regular season. "We're the ones that didn't make the
catches or didn't make the blocks. The holes were there for us. We
just didn't take care of our business. We knew going into this game
that we were going to take care of business.''
For all the talk about Tampa Bay's top-ranked defense, a rapidly
improving offense gave the Bucs the boost they needed to finally
get to the Super Bowl.
Brad Johnson threw 259 yards and one touchdown. But more
importantly, the Eagles' vaunted pass rush was unable to get to the
quarterback.
"When we came up here the last time we were unsure of what we
were doing. We kept saying it's a work in progress,'' Brad Johnson
said. "We got better throughout the second half of the season and
it showed tonight.''
An inability to score touchdowns in playoff losses the past
three years cost former coach Tony Dungy his job. The Bucs' offense
has produced six TDs in two playoff games under new coach Jon
Gruden.
Johnson & Johnson teamed on 9-yard touchdown pass in the second
quarter, giving the Bucs the lead for good. Earlier, Mike Alstott
finished a 96-yard drive -- longest in Bucs postseason history --
with a 1-yard TD run that proved Tampa Bay's offense didn't have an
aversion to the end zone at Veterans Stadium, after all.
The Bucs had gone three straight games in Philadelphia,
including playoff losses the past two years, without an offensive
TD. In two previous appearances in the NFC title game, they also
failed to score a touchdown.
Keyshawn Johnson said too much was made the past weeks of the
team's past failures in Philadelphia, where they were outscored
52-12 in playoff losses in 2000 and 2001. The Bucs also lost the
1999 NFC title game 11-6 to the St. Louis Rams.
"We came into the situation last year not knowing if our head
coach was going to be here. We came into the situation the year
before, thinking we're going to be the 1 or 2 seed and we missed
the field goal and all a sudden we're got to go on the road and win
three games to get to the Super Bowl,'' Johnson said. "We had a
lot of distractions. This time, we don't come in with anything.''
With the offensive line clearing holes for the running game and
giving Brad Johnson enough time to throw, the Bucs consistently
moved the ball against a defense that hardly resembled the unit
that dominated Tampa Bay during the regular season.
Keyshawn Johnson's TD capped an 80-yard drive that gave the Bucs
a 17-10 lead. The loquacious receiver has been unhappy at times
with his lack of involvement in the offense, but promised to step
up if given a chance.
He also had catches of 22 and 10 yards before catching a slant
pass for the touchdown.
Besides finally breaking through the Eagles, they may have
finally put an end to talk about their pathetic history in cold
weather.
The Bucs had never won a game in temperatures below 40 degrees
before last month when they closed the regular season with a 15-0
victory over the Chicago Bears. It was 26 at kickoff Sunday with a
wind chill factor of 16.
Warren Sapp said he never had any doubts that the Bucs would get
the job done again.
"You look at it, and everything people were talking about
didn't have anything to do with football,'' Sapp said.
"It was our history here, we can't do this, we can't do that.
It's cold, it might snow, the field was not good. Everything but
man on man. We're a confident bunch and knew what we had to do to
get it done. We didn't have to talk about it, just let the pads do
the talking.''
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