Columnist Dean Juipe: Super Bowl looked all too typical

Dean Juipe

Monday, Jan. 27, 2003 | 9:42 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

The drawback of a rout in a team-sport game is that the guys getting shellacked can't wave a white towel and surrender.

Nor can they feign a collective injury and retire.

Nor can they be saved from further indignation by a sympathetic cornerman jumping into the ring to cause a disqualification, or by a referee who does everyone a favor and signals the fight is over.

And a "mercy rule," which has cut many a one-sided scrimmage short, ceases to exist for athletes beyond the age of puberty.

So, to the regret of spectators the world over, when a game gets out of hand the participants simply have to play it out. Sunday's Super Bowl? Well, it was vaguely super, but only for a while.

But we shouldn't have been surprised.

They've wrapped up the National Football League season for 37 years now with a highly-touted and over-hyped showcase game that has evolved into something resembling a pseudo national holiday. Yet, more often than not, the game itself has failed to match its ridiculously high expectations and been left for dead, a carcass on the side of the road attracting only a scavenger's interest.

Such was the case in Tampa Bay's 48-21 victory over Oakland at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium.

For the 20th time in Super Bowl history, the final score had a point differential of 15 or greater. For some reason, when the two best teams -- or, at least, the last two left standing -- play, one submits like a cowering puppy.

And Rich Gannon, with his record five interceptions, gets tagged this year's dog.

Turn the ball over more than your opponent and you will lose the Super Bowl, as has been the case in 28 of the 30 games in which one team had more turnovers than the other. Combine Gannon's picks with Oakland's complete inability to run the ball or get it to its primary receivers, plus its seemingly lackluster approach, and a game that looked close on paper was anything but.

The underdog won and whether you bet it at 3 1/2 or 4 didn't matter. Aside from a brief sign of life on the Raiders' side midway through the fourth quarter, all of the swashbuckling in this suspense-less Pirate Bowl was done by the Buccaneers.

Their top-rated defense was stingy, it kept the pressure on Gannon and it returned three of his errant or tipped passes for touchdowns. For security reasons there may have been a no-fly zone over the stadium, but something was buzzing and it was Tampa Bay's defense.

The Bucs, from any perspective, deserved to win. A franchise that has existed since 1976 without ever returning a kickoff for a touchdown gets three off picks in its biggest game ever, and 26 seasons of firing blanks from a poorly guarded bow are quickly forgotten.

Given the benefit of history, this game was over at halftime with Tampa up 20-3. Super Bowls, it seems, attract everything but comebacks, and only once -- Washington in 1988 -- has a team come from as many as 10 points down to win.

A passive Oakland team wasn't about to be the second to do it.

For a game played on such an enormous stage, it was a disappointment. It was like Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson, but without the punch.