Just a few feet wide right.

What a game, I was sad to see my team lose, but I walked away with some positive notes:

This was a hard fought defensive game. I will say that I think the Chicago Bears might be the NFC team to beat. I have not seen a defense this good since the Bucs Superbowl D.

However, let me say that we should have won this game. If it was not for the huge turn over during the first quarter, where Anthony Davis was beaten by Brown, which lead to the sack of Chris Simms and a fumble. This resulted in the Bears ball at the Bucs 1 yard line. Which lead to a Bears TD. Take away that TD and extra point it would have been Bears 6, Bucs 10. Simms tried to get the ball back at the one yard line, but he was also trying to prevent from getting a safety.

Hindsight-2020, he should have fallen on the ball and allowed the safety for 2 points. Then it would have been Bears 8 and Bucs 10. This was the only touchdown that the Buccaneers D allowed. Over all Chris Simms played another great game.

“The next time Steve Young even thinks about assessing the toughness of Chris Simms, he should check with Jon Gruden.
Tampa Bay's third-year quarterback took another important step in his development Sunday, learning painful lessons along the way in a 13-10 loss to the Bears.
The NFL's top-rated defense kept coming after Simms, sacking him four times and forcing an early turnover that forged a 7-0 lead.

"I've got to admit I was pretty impressed with their quarterback," Chicago linebacker Lance Briggs said. "He made some throws on us and he didn't make a lot of big mistakes."

But he made one.
Right defensive end Alex Brown stripped Simms on Tampa Bay's third snap and teammate Tommie Harris recovered at the Bucs 1-yard line. Chicago scored on the next play and Simms found himself trailing a nasty defense that is threatening the record-low 165 points allowed by the 2000 Ravens.”

The fumble was not his fault, he once again lead the Bucs down for the final score during the last 2 minutes of the game, which would have been the field goal from Matt Bryant to tie the game and go into overtime. However, Bryant missed the field goal.

"The comeback that Chris Simms engineered in the last couple possessions was one I will be most proud of in my relationship with him," Gruden said. "They were tremendous. He is very poised. I thought he managed the offense tremendously, running back-to-back drives."

Cadillac Williams is back 100%, he had 84 yards on the ground against the number one defense in the NFL. Caddy has 716 yards todate, he needs just 284 more yards with five games left to reach 1,000 yards. GO CADDY!!!!!!!!!!!

Joey Galloway had another huge game with 138 yards receiving.

The game came down to a beautiful orchestrated drive lead by Chris Simms, which started at his 31 yard line. A simple hitch to Galloway lead to a 30-yard gain, Tampa Bay was on the move again. A 16-yard strike to Galloway led to Matt Bryant's 29-yard field goal attempt that missed wide right.

I had just told my wife that Bryant was the man. DAMN I ate my words. However, he is still the man and has made some game winning kicks for us this year.

What we did not know was that: Bryant hurt himself executing the opening kickoff against Chicago on Sunday, incurring what Gruden referred to as a “slight right hamstring strain.” Bryant finished the game, kicking off three times and booting one extra point and two field goal tries. The final attempt, a 29-yarder near the end of regulation, could have tied the game at 13-13 but sailed just a few feet wide right. It was only Bryant’s second miss from inside 30 yards in 14 career attempts. Gruden conceded on Monday that the injury could have played a part in the miss, though he didn’t think so at the time.

" There is human error that is involved in every aspect of life, and that includes placekicking. Matt Bryant is a heck of a kicker, now. He’s won us some games and by God he’ll win us some more."

We are still in good position at 7-4 and are in second place in the division. Next week we face the Saints on the road. Another tough game, but one in which we should win. I believe we will win 3 more games making our record 10-6 and should be well into the playoffs. Who knows maybe we will see the Bears again in a month or so.

A special thanks to my little brother for the great blog header and footer.