ESPN.com - Down & dirty with Big Filthy

ESPN.com: Page 2

Thursday, September 11, 2003
Updated: September 12, 12:30 PM ET
Down & dirty with Big Filthy

By Jason Whitlock
Page 2 columnist

The obvious top story of the NFL's opening week was the clown suit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense stitched for Donovan McNabb and the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football.


	The Cooler honors one of the coolest: The Man in Black.

Simeon Rice, Derrick Brooks, Ronde Barber, John Lynch and Big Filthy (Warren Sapp) pitched a no-no. The Eagles couldn't score, couldn't move, couldn't convert on third down and were basically turned into the pre-Jon Gruden Tampa Bay offense.

We're looking at a modern-day Steel Curtain, which is amazing given the advent of free agency and the rules that favor NFL offenses. Remember how we thought Ray Lewis's Baltimore Ravens D would terrorize the NFL for a sustained period. Didn't happen. Free agency and a piss-poor offense turned Baltimore's D into a one-trick phony.

Brooks, Lynch and Big Filthy have been shutting down offenses for damn near a decade. If they carry Brad and Keyshawn Johnson back to another Super Bowl, we're talking dynasty, we're talking greatest defense of all time, we're talking five or six Buc defenders in the Hall of Fame.

I'm talking about my man Sapp standing toe-to-toe with Mean Joe Greene in the debate for all-time supremacy.


	No need to worry about complacency with this man around.

Don't kid yourself and get caught up in the Warren Sapp backlash, the resentment lingering from Sapp's season-ending de-cleating of Green Bay tackle Chad Clifton last year. Big Filthy is still the motor driving Tampa's D. He sets the table that all the other Bucs eat from. As a lifelong offensive linemen, I don't need sacks or stats to tell me who is and isn't breaking down an offense.

You put a Manster in the middle, and it's Doomsday for the offense. I don't need to explain that, do I? You remember Randy White and Dallas' Doomsday Defense, right?

Anyway, Wednesday afternoon I caught up with Big Filthy as he was driving home after practice. We talked about Monday night, Chad Clifton and Sapp's place in history.

JW: "You caught a five-yard pass on Monday night. You moving to offense?"

Sapp: "Whoa, whoa, whoa. That was a 14-yard pass."

JW: "My bad, a 14-yard pass. You moving?"

Sapp: "Just in certain situations. Jon asked me a couple years ago, 'Could you help us out in goal-line situations?' And when Rickey Dudley went down in the last preseason game, he came to me and said, 'I'm going to lean on you a little more in the middle of the field and short-yardage situations.' I said, 'Anything to help this ballclub win games, Boss.' "

JW: "Are you guys inside the Eagles' heads, particularly on defense?"


	Not everyone is a fan of Sapp's style on the field, especially Packers coach Mike Sherman.

Sapp: "Naw, the thing we wanted to do was just go out and play fundamentally sound and shut them down in their running game and make Donovan pass to beat us. We've always relied on our pass rush and our pass coverages. Our pass coverage is the best part of our defense. We were just going to put them in a situation where Donovan never felt comfortable, and we got it done."

JW: "It seems like the defense has taken a step up since Tony Dungy left. I wouldn't have thought that was possible. Why the improvement?"

Sapp: "It's because our offense is improved. That's the one thing we've got to take our hat off to Jon for bringing us, was a ball-control offense that will get first downs, that will put points on the board. Our playoff run a year ago, I think we scored at least 27 points every game we played. Whenever you're scoring points like that, it's going to really feed your defense and we like to play with a lead."

JW: "Are you guys -- you, Simeon, Lynch, Brooks -- trying to establish your place in history as a defense that rivals the Steel Curtain and some of the other all-time greats?"

Sapp: "We talked about it before we won the championship last year. That was the one thing missing from our résumé, was a world championship. Now that we've tasted one, there's no other taste that'll go in your mouth that'll fit that taste for you. That's the only thing that you strive for.


	No penalty was called on Sapp's hit that sidelined Chad Clifton.

"We talked to Reggie White -- he talked to our team a little bit in the offseason. He said that the taste of that last loss in the Super Bowl has never left him. Then you see Jerry Rice's interview after winning four of them and then losing his first one. It's like he has never won one if you talk to him. We just want to go out and look each other in the eye and know that we're giving everything we have."

JW: "So we don't have to worry about complacency?"

Sapp: "I think Jon is the catalyst in all that. Because if he's got a car that goes 120, he wants to go 140. That's the way we're pushing right now. We're pushing for the wall."

JW: "Chad Clifton was on one of the NFL pregame shows, and the discussion turned to you and why you've never contacted him after the pelvic injury he suffered. What's your side of the story?

Sapp: "My side of the story?"

Jason Whitlock is a columnist for the Kansas City Star (kcstar.com) and a regular contributor on ESPN The Magazine's Sunday morning edition of "The Sports Reporters." He also hosts an afternoon radio show, "The Doghouse," on Kansas City's 61 Sports KCSP. He can be reached at ballstate68@aol.com.