QB Brad Johnson celebrated his touchdown run against Baltimore in style, saying later that it was a 'huge' win for the Bucs
(Editor's note: After defeating the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday night, Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Brad Johnson is enjoying a three-day break from practice to ring in the new year. On his mind are thoughts from the Bucs' latest win, as well as their next two games with the Philadelphia Eagles. As told to Dave Richard.)
This past weekend's win against Baltimore was absolutely huge for us, elevating us into the playoffs. Really, the last two weeks were big games in which we separated ourselves from the rest of the pack. We were a struggling 3-4 team to start, and then we won the last six of eight and we're starting to play our best football of the season.
Playing on Saturday night was different. It was a little tougher to prepare during the course of the week because of the Christmas holiday and then playing on a shorter week. It was the first night game we had in Tampa all season long. I think by everyone having all day to tailgate and us playing late night on TV, the crowd's enthusiasm was electrifying! Raymond James usually is a stadium that gets loud and rocks, and that was evident on Saturday night.
Next week we play Philly, then we happen to play them again in the first round of the playoffs at their place. This week will be interesting to see how much we really "game-plan" them. I'm sure we don't want to give away too much heading into the playoffs. It will also be interesting for both teams to see how much they play their starters and prepare for this game but more so the first playoff game.
It seems like coach Tony Dungy's job has been a hot topic all season long. This was a losing organization before Tony got here, and now he's made the playoffs four out of the last five years. Tony has turned us into a winning organization. When I made my decision to come to Tampa, there were a lot of factors involved, but playing for Tony Dungy was one of them. Tony's an awesome coach to play for -- very organized, very smart and gets the most out of his players. There's no doubt in my mind that the players want Tony to be the head coach for the next four or five years. I feel like he deserves to stay and hopefully we'll make a run in the playoffs and prove a lot of people wrong.
