Defense Defines the Victory

Oh, it was a close contest between the NFL’s No. 1 defense and No. 1 offense all right. You know what they say, the game ain’t over till Bon Jovi sings.

And this one came down to the wire, when Tampa Bay defensive back Dwight Smith raced into the end zone with two seconds left.

That meant the Buccaneers’ defense scored three touchdowns to the Raider offense’s two.

And that’s what amounted to any form of competition in Super Bowl XXXVII. On the big scoreboard and everywhere else, the Buccaneer defense dominated the Raiders, reflected by the 48-21 final score.

If not for two long touchdown passes after the Buccaneers had gone ahead 34-3, the game wouldn’t have been even that close. (Oakland scored its other touchdown off a blocked punt.)

Al Davis should stop making territorial claims to the Los Angeles market and find out who deeded possession of the Oakland backfield to the Buccaneers.

Tampa Bay’s defense was so good that safety Dexter Jackson became the eighth defensive player to be selected the Super Bowl’s most valuable player, and he might have had the third-best day of any Buccaneers defender, at best.

Of course, we had to wait until after a Bon Jovi song in the postgame ceremony to find out Jackson, who returned two interceptions for a total of 34 yards, was the winner.

That didn’t compare to Dwight Smith’s two interceptions returned for a combined 94 yards and two touchdowns. Or the real star of the game, Simeon Rice, who had five tackles and two sacks and was the most visible member of the Buccaneers’ front line that hunted quarterback Rich Gannon.

The Buccaneers had five sacks, and it was the line’s pressure that harassed Gannon into throwing five interceptions.

“It starts up front,” Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin said. “You can talk about any coverage you want, if you don’t get a rush, the coverage doesn’t work.”

Kiffin, the mad scientist (think Christopher Lloyd in “Back to the Future”) who concocts brilliant schemes in his laboratory, can take a lot of credit himself.

“Monte is a genius,” cornerback Ronde Barber said. “He mixes stuff up. He never really takes the dogs off, so to speak.”

Rice helped set the tone early, when he made a swim move past Oakland left tackle Barry Sims and sacked Gannon for a six-yard loss on third and seven at the Tampa Bay 16-yard line. That meant the Raiders only got a field goal after intercepting a pass by Tampa Bay quarterback Brad Johnson in Tampa territory on the third play of the game.

It meant Rice had already disproved the loud comments made by Oakland left guard Frank Middleton late last week.

“As long as you let him run up and down the field and not get hit, he is going to have a great game,” Middleton said. “We do not play like that. We are going to hit Simeon. I do not think he has ever been hit like we are going to hit him. We are not scared of Simeon. Simeon is not our problem right now.”

Maybe he wasn’t a problem for them as they sat in a hotel ballroom Thursday, but he caused all kinds of trouble Sunday at Qualcomm Stadium.

“You called out the dog,” Rice said. “And the dog bit.”

Rice led the NFC with 15.5 sacks this season, so why did people fell the need to dis him? Before the NFC championship it was Philadelphia Eagles lineman John Welbourn.

Memo to offensive linemen for 2003: leave the talking to Simeon, who does it quite well.

“It seems like I personally got called out two weeks in a row, when all I’ve been doing is rippin’ em all season,” Rice said. “People can make their mouths say anything they want. But the truth is the truth. This is not virtual reality anymore. This is straight up and down, actual fact. It’s a matter of fact now: We are the world champions.”

The Raiders averaged 390 yards per game this season and had put up 71 points in their two playoff games.

A big reason is their huge offensive line and the amount of time it provided for Gannon to make decisions and deliver his accurate passes.

Lincoln Kennedy weighs in at 335 pounds, Sims checks in at 300, Middleton is 330 and Mo Collins comes in at 325.

Tampa Bay’s defensive ends, Rice and Darby, can’t get within 30 pounds of 300.

That didn’t matter one bit Sunday.

“I wouldn’t care if they put Mt. Everest in front of me,” Rice said. “It was going to be climbed today. Because there was a need to be a world champion.

“Size only matters if you allow it to. That’s when size matters. Other than that, you can manipulate those things. Speed kills. And we’ve got a lot of it, too.”

As Kiffin said, the key to their defense is: “Speed, speed. And we’re very smart.”

You can see the results of their knowledge and film study in the great breaks the defensive backs get on passes. It’s as if they know where the ball is going before the receivers do. Smith and Jackson combined to catch almost as many passes (four) as Oakland’s Hall of Fame-bound receivers duo of Jerry Rice and Tim Brown, who totaled six receptions. (six).

“I give a lot of credit to Jerry and Tim and what they’ve done in their careers,” said Barber, who spent almost as much time blitzing as he did in coverage. “But quite honestly, I don’t know how much they deserved to be on the field with us the way we played today.”

The Buccaneers have never put together a singe dominant season comparable to some of the legendary defenses to which they’re drawing comparison, such as the 1985 Bears and 2000 Ravens. But they’ve been ranked in the top 10 for 10 years now and clearly represent the heart of this team. So it was fitting that they delivered the franchise’s first championship.

“The age-old stories,” Rice said. “Offense wins games, defense wins championships. We won today. That truly exemplifies what a champion is all about.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.