By GLENN MILLER
The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press

SAN DIEGO - The Tampa Bay Bucs have done just about everything a great defense can do. Just about.

They posted two shutouts. And both were on the road. They had half as many shutouts this season as they had in their first 26 years.

The Bucs allowed a league-low 196 points. They were No. 1 in total defense.

Bucs linebacker Derrick Brooks was the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year.

Name it and they've done it. Done it all. Just about.

Points were generally up in the NFL this season.

"Not down here," Tampa Bay defensive tackle Warren Sapp said.

They were No. 1 against the pass. They led the league in interceptions.

Fewest yards allowed per play. They allowed the fewest first downs. They stopped the pass and the run and forced teams to abandon all hope. Defensive end Simeon Rice led the NFC in sacks with 15.5. The game's greatest running quarterbacks were made to look like Tweety Bird, flitting about in a cage with the door locked shut, not going anywhere.

They've done just about everything to be considered a great defense. One thing remains. They know it. To be considered one of the all-time great defenses, they must win the Super Bowl.

That's part of what will drive them Sunday when they face the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII in Qualcomm Stadium. It won't be easy. Oakland has the league's No. 1 offense and the league MVP in quarterback Rich Gannon.

"I think they do accept the premise that until you win a championship, you are not going to be viewed as special," Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay said. "You are viewed as very good. You are viewed at times as great but special requires the championship and so I think they have become very determined to try to get over that little hump."

Great defenses win championships. That's a premise the Bucs accept as readily as the theory that the Earth is round and the sun sets in the west.

They've done it with great players on every element of the defense. The line includes Sapp and Rice, who are both Pro Bowl selections. The linebackers are led by Brooks, who has been named to the Pro Bowl six consecutive years.

The secondary is led by safety John Lynch, a five-time Pro Bowl selection.

The secondary also has cornerback Brian Kelly, who led the league in interceptions. The other corner is Ronde Barber, who didn't make the Pro Bowl but is one of the game's best.

"Ronde Barber is as good a football player as I've ever been around," Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden said. "You are talking about the complete package."

A hallmark of Tampa Bay's defense is speed. Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick may be the fastest player in the game. Against the Bucs, he could never turn the corner, running for 10 yards on seven carries. Wherever he looked or moved, somebody was hemming him in. It may have been Rice, a 6-foot-5, 268-pounder with the speed of a linebacker and the athleticism of a world-class basketball player.

That speed sets Tampa Bay's defense apart.

"It's the fastest defense I have seen," Gruden said.

That speed gives the Bucs confidence. Each player knows he is fast and his teammates are fast and help is always on the way, at a high rate of speed.

Oakland coach Bill Callahan certainly knows about that speed.

"The linebackers are like raptors," Callahan said. "They're all over the place. Their quickness is really defining. Their front four, their pass rush and the heat they put on you becomes a concern. ... They make no mistakes.

"There is no error in their game. What they're doing is on the cutting edge."

Fast and tough. Gaudy stats. Honors.

They don't count Sunday.

"With us finishing the season with our defense ranked No. 1, that was great and an incredible accomplishment," Rice said. "But really when you talk about great defenses you have to talk about Super Bowls. You look at the great defenses of the past and they have won games and won championships.

"The jury is still out on where we fit in with the great defenses of the past but after we win this game, we can talk about where we stand.

"So after we win the game, we can compare with the legends of the past. The Purple People Eaters (Minnesota Vikings). Wait, they didn't win the big one. The Steel Curtain and the Bears and the Ravens."

Those are the defenses that have set the gold standard. Well, except for those Vikings, the Purple People Eaters of Alan Page and Carl Eller who were 0-4 in the Super Bowl in the 1970s. The Pittsburgh Steelers' Steel Curtain defense of Mean Joe Greene and Jack Lambert won four Super Bowls between 1975 and 1980.

The 1985 Chicago Bears' defense that featured Mike Singletary was 15-1 and beat the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX. Only two years ago, the Baltimore Ravens set a record for fewest points (165) allowed in a 16-game schedule. They came to Tampa and hammered the New York Giants, 34-7 in Super Bowl XXXV.

The Bucs need to do something like that. They were 12-4 in the regular-season, setting a franchise record in victories. They hammered the San Francisco 49ers 31-6 in a divisional playoff game and then last week exorcised some demons and beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10.

All season, they've shut down opponents and have even outscored some offenses. They had five defensive touchdowns, including four interceptions returned by touchdowns. That sucks the air out of opponents.

"We have an assortment of guys who revel in the moment and have fun," Rice said. "We play hard. We are aggressive and we all know we are the best at what we do. When you have that, you are playing with a two-headed sword. We are dominant on defense. It becomes so overwhelming that you score points.

"So now your defense becomes your offense. We are not just defensive minded. All of us are thinking that we can change the game with interceptions and sack fumbles. We believe that we can also score and now you have a two-headed monster."

Tampa Bay's defense has been monstrous all season.

Now, Rice and Sapp and Brooks and the rest are on their sport's biggest stage with a chance to earn a spot on the short list of the NFL's greatest defenses.

"This is our chance to show the whole world," Sapp said.

The defense knows one thing is more important than claiming a piece of history for itself.

"Making a mark in history is not our No. 1 priority," Lynch said. "Our No. 1 priority is to win a world championship and not be concerned with how we stand in history. We're trying to reach our goals and if that means that Oakland scores 40 points and we score 41, that will be just fine with all of us."

Here they are, the best vs. the best.

"I think they are like the antithesis of what we are," Rice said of the Raiders. "They are bizarro Buccaneers. We are bizarro world Raiders. ...

"It's the two bullies of the game at their best."

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