THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 5, 1994 TAG: 9412050120
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: TAMPA, FLA. LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Coach Norv Turner said he thought the Washington Redskins hit rock bottom five weeks ago, after an overtime loss at home to the Arizona Cardinals.
What he witnessed Sunday in a bizarre 26-21 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers caused him to change his mind.
He watched the Buccaneers hold the ball for 42 minutes, 14 seconds, an all-time franchise high, including overtime games.
He saw them chew up 28 first downs, second-most in team history, to seven for the Redskins.
He saw a Buccaneers defense ranked last against the run overwhelm his offensive line and hold Washington to 10 yards on 12 carries, shattering the Redskins' team-record low set in 1947.
Meanwhile, the Bucs ground out 213 rushing yards, including a club-rookie-record 192 by Errict Rhett. That's the most yardage one player has gained against the Redskins since Bobby Mitchell, then of the Cleveland Browns, gained 232 in 1959.
He watched as the Bucs gained 464 total yards, fifth-highest mark in team history.
Worst of all, he watched improbable victory slip into inevitable defeat. The Buccaneers, trailing by a point with 2:57 to play, marched 80 yards in 11 plays to the 2-yard quarterback sneak by Craig Erickson with 32 seconds left that moved their mark to 4-9 and stave off - or is it merely postpone? - a 12th consecutive season of at least 10 losses.
``I told the team five weeks ago that we'd hit rock bottom,'' Turner said. ``It wasn't. This is as low as you can get.''
Maybe. Turner, whose team fell to 2-10 with its fifth consecutive loss, has been wrong before.
Sunday, the Redskins lost to a Tampa Bay team arrogant enough to stack eight men along the line of scrimmage and dare rookie quarterback Heath Shuler to make them pay.
Occasionally, Shuler did.
He found Desmond Howard on an 81-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter that gave Washington a 14-10 lead.
And with the Buccaneers stubbornly - and stupidly - in the same alignment with less than two minutes to play in the first half, Shuler hit a wide-open Olanda Truitt with a 77-yard scoring bomb. That propelled the Redskins to a stunning 21-17 halftime lead, even though they had generated just two first downs.
``They were going to stop the run and stop the intermediate pass,'' Turner said. ``Heath's not going to hit every deep ball. It'll never be a high-percentage play.''
Shuler finished with a career-high 278 yards passing on 13 completions in 25 attempts. But he fumbled away Washington's only second-half scoring threat when he was sacked by Eric Curry at the Tampa Bay 22 early in the fourth quarter.
``We didn't get drives,'' Shuler said. ``It's frustrating. You see the other team with the ball all game and you want to be on the other side of it someday. We're all trying to maintain our sanity through this.''
Washington's only other score came on linebacker Andre Collins' 92-yard interception return on the opening series of the game. Collins cut off receiver Courtney Hawkins, then outran Hawkins to the end zone to give Washington a 7-0 lead less than three minutes into the game.
The rest of the day was spent chasing Rhett, who had broken all of Emmitt Smith's records at Florida.
Rhett carried the ball on seven of Tampa Bay's first eight plays, 40 times in all. He lost yardage on just two rushes and had a key 23-yard gain on Tampa Bay's winning drive.
``The holes were open today and when they are, I can run,'' Rhett said. ``I thought they (the Bucs' coaches) would switch up in the second half. But we ran the same plays and they couldn't stop them.''
Turner agreed.
``Basically, at some point it comes down to they're going to run the football,'' he said. ``Then the question is: Can you stop them?''
The Redskins couldn't when it counted.
Washington's defense also had two golden opportunities to stop the Bucs on their final drive. But free safety Darryl Morrison dropped what should have been an easy interception.
On the next play, Collins tipped Tampa Bay quarterback Craig Erickson's pass to Lawrence Dawsey. But the ball fluttered in the air, and Dawsey pulled it in for a 13-yard gain.
``And that's why we're 2-11,'' Truitt said, reflecting on all the could've-beens of another long day. ``We can't execute at the proper time.''
And why maybe the worst is still yet to come. by CNB