Chip Carter's Newsroom

   Rest to me is more important than momentum.  Jon Gruden feels the same way, because he rested a lot of starters: Jeff Garcia dressed but didn't play.  Joey Galloway, Earnest Graham, Barrett Ruud, Jermaine Phillips, didn't dress, didn't play and thats the way it should be.  To me, momentum is over rated, it doesn't matter what a teams record is heading into the playoffs, as long as they are in the playoffs.

  To a man, the Bucs players I talked to in the locker room after the game:  Kevin Carter, Greg Spires, Chris Hovan, Michael Pittman all told me the same thing, the momentum kicks in, when they hear 70,000 Buccaneer fans crank up the volume next week against the Giants, that will give Jon Gruden and his team all the momentum they need.  There will be some (maybe quite a few) who will look at this Bucs team, a team that lost three out of their last 4 and talk about the loss of momentum, again, I gotta say,  momentum is over rated.  What Jon Gruden did, was get players who needed it, experience.   Wide receiver Chad Lucas looked comfortable out there, Michael Bennett got more playing time, Jeremiah Trotter, ran the defense.  All of it may or may not come into play when the playoffs crank up...but if those players are needed, if they need to step in on special teams or step in to the huddle, they now have some game experience behind them.

   So the fact that the Bucs lost 31-23 doesn't matter.  The fact that the Bucs finished the season 9-7, doesn't matter.  Jon Gruden was able to get what he wanted and that was some rest to recuperate for some of his key starters.  Did it just twist up Gruden's insides, not to be able to play everybody?  Absolutely.  Would have have wanted to finish the season 11-5 instead of  9-7, again the answer is yes.  But thats not how the end of this season played out, Gruden had to pull back the reins against San Francisco and he had to do it again against Carolina-- now we will see how much it pays off when they take on the Giants in the first round of the playoffs.