They Couldn’t Sapp His Energy

Tampa Bay Buccaneer defensive lineman Warren Sapp had a great game Sunday, getting three of his team’s four sacks and seven tackles. Sapp also forced two Green Bay fumbles and recovered one of them.

But perhaps the most entertaining game Sapp played was the mind game he waged against Green Bay Packer quarterback Brett Favre, constantly peppering Favre with a verbal assault.

When asked what was said, Favre told reporters, “I could get in about three words you could use.”

But Favre is hardly a silent bystander when verbal shots start flying and he got in his hits as well.

At one point, when Sapp was about to come off the field, Favre yelled at him, “That’s right. Go over there and take a blow [a rest].”

When Sapp heard that, he turned around and waved off his replacement. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Both teams had a right to leave Lambeau Field in a positive mood. The Packers are going back to the NFC championship game. And the Buccaneers had their most successful season since they reached the NFC title game after the 1979 season.

But second-year coach Tony Dungy wasn’t speaking of positives.

“The mind-set is low,” he said of his locker room. “We’re kind of disappointed. We didn’t play our best.

“We came up a bit short. We’re not in the upper echelon yet, but we’re close.”

The Packer victory, the club’s 27th in a row at Lambeau Field, enabled Green Bay to maintain its unblemished home record in postseason play.

The Packers have won all 10 postseason games at Lambeau in a streak that started in the 1961 NFL championship game, a 37-0 victory over the New York Giants.

But the Packer postseason home winning streak actually stretched to 12 Sunday.

Green Bay beat the Giants, 27-0, in the 1939 NFL title game at Milwaukee’s State Fair Park. And in 1967, the Packers defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 28-7, in a Western Conference playoff game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium.