“The Players Are Just As Stupid”
January 28th, 2013
Leave it to Keyshawn Johnson to put a fresh spin on the recent Super Bowl “sabotage” accusation Tim Brown leveled at his former Raiders head coach, Bill Callahan, claiming Callahan changed his gameplan at the last minute in an effort to spurn the Raiders organization and hand the 2003 Super Bowl to old friend Jon Gruden and the Bucs.
Speaking on ESPN Radio to Mike Tirico this weekend, Johnson said it’s ex-Raiders who own a lot of the responsibility for their poor showing because they never insisted on changing their calls to surprise the Bucs’ defense.
“The players are just as stupid as the head coach,” Johnson said.
College football-ignorant, popcorn-munching, coffee-slurping, fried-chicken-eating, oatmeal-loving, circle-jerking, beer-chugging Peter King, of Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports, surprisingly came out today in his popular Monday column and claimed there’s no way those champion Bucs knew what plays the Raiders called, even though that take is completely contrary to Bucs history, as told by Derrick Brooks, John Lynch and others.
Mike Florio, curator and guru of ProFootballTalk.com, politely discredited King earlier today on that point.
The game broadcast, however, contained strong evidence to the contrary.
Tampa Bay safety John Lynch wore a microphone, and he plainly can be heard telling former Bucs defensive backs coach Mike Tomlin after the Raiders fell behind 20-3 late in the first half, “Mike, every play they’ve run, we ran in practice. It’s unreal.”
Said Tomlin, “I know.”
Whatever the reason, the Buccaneers’ dominance was enough, we’re told, to prompt Raiders receiver Jerry Rice to rip the microphone he was wearing during the game from his pads and flush it down a toilet at halftime.
Florio speculates that the Callahan controversy will heat up again if media types (perhaps Joe?) ask Niners head coach Jim Harbaugh about it tomorrow at Super Bowl media day. Harbaugh was on that Raiders staff.
Joe remains surprised, especially given all the BS still floating around about this topic, that Roger Goodell hasn’t launched a formal investigation. How the hell can the integrity of a Super Bowl be seriously questioned — by Jerry Rice and Tim Brown of all people — and the commissioner sits quietly in the shadows?
Johnson went on to jokingly say he was surprised Chucky hadn’t weighed publicly in on this topic. As a result, Johnson said he was going to ask Chucky at the Super Bowl, “How much did you pay the guy?” referring to Chucky possibly being in on the Callahan sabotage.
January 28th, 2013 at 5:35 pm
like i said before this topic will not be investigated by the league and will simply “run its course” no matter how hard the media or anyone else pries at it. Its would be more beneficial to the league if they act like it never happened instead of ripping open a scabbed wound. and that just what they will do.
January 28th, 2013 at 5:37 pm
I give it another 2 or 3 months before we never hear from it again, thank God.
January 28th, 2013 at 5:42 pm
Talk about stoking the fire, can’t we just move on for Christ sake. It was 10 years ago and I’ll bet if it all gets dragged out we will find that Callahan and his staff never figured the Bucs would make it past the NFC Championship to the “Big Show”. They probably figured they wouldn’t have to change the planning and terminology, and they guessed wrong and had to make a contingency plan at the last minute. That’s all, end of story. What’s done is done and it can’t be changed. Plus it had nothing to do with the Raiders defense still giving up 48 points to the Bucs.
January 28th, 2013 at 6:13 pm
Enough. Really. We’re still talking about this nonsense. These jokers are sore losers. Nothing about the allegations is noteworthy. Please, can we just stop promoting this and talk about more pressing matters.
January 28th, 2013 at 6:20 pm
Liked/tolerated Keyshawn as a Buc…but his comments above continue to confirm that is abrasive at best.
January 28th, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Job:
No. This will be a hot topic all week. Derrick Brooks even said so.
Part of the reason why is that a member of the coaching staff for the Raiders who is alleged to have thrown a Super Bowl is a head coach in this year’s Super Bowl.
Better hide under the bed. It ain’t going away this week.
January 28th, 2013 at 7:14 pm
It’s not gonna go anywhere no matter how many times its talked about lol…
Tim Brown already backpedaled, it’s laughable
January 28th, 2013 at 7:15 pm
Joe should ask one of the brothers if they plan on sabotaging the game for the other.
January 28th, 2013 at 8:26 pm
I’d love for someone to show me real evidence that Tim Brown “backpedaled” … He never retracted anything, and more importantly Jerry Rice didn’t either.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:04 pm
This whole topic is stupid. Yeah, people will continue talking about it… but it’s stupid. It’s a sideshow. Every word spent perpetuating this discussion is a waste.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:23 pm
Speaking on Dan Patrick’s radio show today, however, Brown seemed to be backtracking according to Yahoo! Sports:
“I’ve never said [Callahan] sabotaged the game … That’s something that can never be proven … We can never go into the mind of Bill Callahan . . .I should have said we could have called it sabotage. It was a question, not a statement. You cannot prove it.”
From what was reported at first to what was reported the day after Callahan’s released statement to me is seems like a step back.
Anywho it is what it is, the drum will be beaten. I just dont think it will go anywhere. That’s all i’ll say on that
January 28th, 2013 at 9:24 pm
The first [art was part of the article that’s not “today” lol
January 28th, 2013 at 11:21 pm
Joe, have you been a busy guy lately? So used to checking this site every couple hours to see a new article. Been very different and loaft recently, not a problem just curious, is there something new in Joe’s life thats making him so busy?
January 29th, 2013 at 12:46 am
Shayne:
Joe doesn’t post as much during the offseason and he is in New Orleans as well. Nothing different than past years.
January 29th, 2013 at 2:47 am
I guess ol Sacbucs was on target Joe! Investigation lmao Swept Under the Rug! I said it last week and fans attacked me. Believe what you want until you findout your living a lie!
Acid tripping: It wasnt hard to beat our fugding defense that SB year. A real fan that has been watching the Bucs for years would know this.
Flash back know it alls: All any team had to do was run a bootleg..run a trick play or run up the gut! We got torched for years on bs plays like that bc the D was so fast! Shelton Quarles was never a run stopper he was a natural sam backer thats why our middle was vunerable. Sapp never really had a buddy like ColdPepper next to him stopping the run. Besides Quincy we still have not had a solid Sam backer to play that position for years since Quarles moved to the middle. Ya know it alls!
My point: Mobile Qb’s gave us the blues..big recievers gave us the blues and the had both. Still no lightbulb!
Quit biting my style since im so stupid…. clones!
Get off my Nut$ac!
January 29th, 2013 at 9:00 am
Bored now. Gotta be something going on that is interesting
January 29th, 2013 at 9:48 am
I am more interested in seeing if Keyshaun talks to Gruden. If they are mature enough to have casual conversations then they don’t harbor much of the animosity that the media has always protrayed.
And for that, it just proves that you can’t believe anything the sports media prints.
January 29th, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Wish I could have that time back.
January 29th, 2013 at 2:22 pm
I liked Simeon Rice’s comment on it the best:
“Oh, my God, I’m glad we won that game.’ I guess that’s how it is when you lose.”
January 30th, 2013 at 12:50 am
@paul~thats awesome….I didn’t know that. makes sense. haha, good for Simeon Rice to say that! =)