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Hold in front of the mirror a photograph of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense, a group that helped provide the franchise its first Super Bowl title in 2002 and which might be even better this year, and the image reflected in the glass is the Indianapolis Colts unit.

If you conduct the exercise in comparisons, that is, in the fictional Wayback Machine.

"Yeah, it's a familiar look, for sure," said Bucs weak-side linebacker Derrick Brooks. "I mean, you see the Colts, and that's us. But it's the us of seven years ago, and not the us of now, you know? From seeing them (on television), or else on tape, you know that look. It's like they could be our younger brothers or something."

And why not, given that the football progenitor who spawned both defenses is the same man, the coach who fathered the "Cover 2" scheme now so prevalent leaguewide.

That would be Tony Dungy, of course, who sowed Super Bowl seeds eight seasons ago in Tampa, but then wasn't around long enough enjoy the fruits of his labors. Dismissed by the Bucs ownership after a second consecutive first-round playoff defeat that concluded the 2001 season, and hired by Indianapolis less than a week later, Dungy is hoping to see his Colts defense blossom into a viable Super Bowl unit in fairly short order.

And the young defense, statistically ranked No. 6 in the NFL entering Monday's prime time matchup with the Bucs, certainly seems on its way to doing just that.

In four games, the undefeated Colts have permitted just 47 points, the 11.8-point average rating as the NFL's fourth-best mark. That is only six points more than Indianapolis gave up in its embarrassing 41-0 loss to the New York Jets in the wild-card round of last year's playoffs. But discounting that rout, the defensive performance in the first four outings of this season continues dramatic improvement that commenced in '02.

A year before Dungy's arrival, Indianapolis finished 29th in total defense, and surrendered 486 points, the fourth-most since the league adopted the 16-game schedule. In his initial season with the Colts, the defense jumped to eighth and the points fell to 313, a scoring reduction of 35 percent.

If the script features an undeniable déjà vu angle, well, there is an obvious reason.

Turn back the clock to 1996, Dungy's debut season with Tampa Bay and his baptismal campaign as a head coach, and the results were similar. The Bucs ranked 11th in the NFL in defense that season, permitted only 293 points, the league's eighth-fewest. Just a year earlier, under head coach Sam Wyche and coordinator Rusty Tillman, the franchise was No. 27 in overall defense and permitted 335 points.

Only one current Indianapolis defensive starter, cornerback Walt Harris, was even in the NFL at the time that Dungy began his tenure in Tampa. But Harris' perspective is a notable one, since he played for the Chicago Bears at the time, and saw the Bucs twice annually in divisional play.

And for the eighth-year veteran, what he is presently witnessing in the remaking of the Colts defense is not unlike what he saw with the Bucs in 1996, in terms of approach and demeanor, schemes and techniques. The common denominator between the two units: Speed, simplicity and scheme.

"If you weren't fast," said Harris, "you couldn't play for that Bucs team. And it's the same way here. (If you're) slow to the ball, you are going to stick out like a sore thumb, and you aren't going to be able to play this scheme. It's not very complicated, but you have to be able to chase the ball, and we have players here who can run all day long. I mean, Tony has turned this thing around, about 180 degrees."

And how was it that Dungy promulgated a makeover that would have even the Queer Eye Guys green (so, OK, maybe that sea-foam shade they love so much) with envy? The new emphasis on speed, on defenders who had been productive at every level of the game, and on fresh faces, that's how.

In a league long notorious for its copycat tendencies, Dungy is only copying the cat-quick scheme he helped to invent, and simulating the building process he undertook previously with the Tampa Bay franchise.

Of the Colts defensive starters, six were acquired after Dungy arrived, four via the draft and two as unrestricted free agents. Two more were on the roster when Dungy came to the Colts, but were elevated to the starting lineup only after his arrival, in part because they fit so well with his trademark "Cover 2" defense. It's eerily similar to the design he put into place with Tampa Bay in 1996.

Even now, eight seasons after Dungy's arrival, a half-dozen of the Bucs defensive starters are players acquired after he took over the franchise that had experienced double-digit defeats in 12 of the previous 13 seasons. Brooks was a starter when Dungy arrived but the team's two other most notable stars, defensive tackle Warren Sapp and strong safety John Lynch, were both elevated to permanent starters by Dungy.

"He took a gamble on some of us," said Lynch, "and it paid off. I'm guessing that he's doing the same thing (with the Colts)."

Indeed, he is, choosing players based more on production than projections, sometimes using his gut to discern the prospects from the subjects.

Even though Dwight Freeney was the NCAA single-season sack leader at Syracuse, a lot of teams dropped him on their 2002 draft board, because he was deemed not big enough to play defensive end and not good enough in space to be a linebacker. But Dungy knew that Freeney was lightning-quick, had natural closing and cornering speed, and chose him in the first round. In the second round of this year's draft, the Colts grabbed Ohio State safety Mike Doss, even though scouts leaguewide had serious reservations about his time in the 40. Dungy liked Doss, though, because he was always around the ball.

	Reagor

Indianapolis signed nondescript defensive tackle Montae Reagor this spring, a player who had started one regular-season contest in four years with the Denver Broncos, because he had a big motor and might provide much-needed energy to the front four. Reagor is now the starter next to second-year veteran Larry Tripplett, a No. 2 draft choice in 2002 who most clubs felt was too short for the position.

Nick Harper, a third-year veteran originally signed as an undrafted free agent, has bumped former third-round pick David Macklin from the lineup because he has playmaker skills and mental toughness. Harper leads the Colts with three interceptions.

"Sometimes the best fit for our defense is a guy who might be seen as a misfit by some of the other teams in the league," Meeks said.

For sure, the success Dungy has enjoyed is in part a by-product of his keen insights, his ability to fit the talent to the system.

Case in point: Rookie situational pass rusher Robert Mathis, a fifth-round draft pick who is like Freeney in that he seems to lack a true position, but has exceptional quickness off the edge and has posted two sacks.

Youngsters like Mathis, some Colts players agree, will only get better the longer they play the "Cover 2" scheme and assimilate its nuances. This is, after all, a very callow starting lineup, averaging only 2.5 seasons of NFL tenure and 25.5 years of age. By comparison, the Tampa Bay starting defense averages 27.6 years of age and the unit has a mean of 5.4 seasons in the league.

There is another area, at the pay window, where the Bucs significantly outdistance their Indianapolis counterparts. But being able to rebuild the Indianapolis defense, essentially at a bargain basement price, has been a major part of Dungy's mastery.

The defensive players who will start for the Bucs on Monday night have an aggregate salary cap total of $26.7 million for 2003. In contrast, the Colts are doing things on the cheap, at about one-third the price, with a total cap charge of just $9.2 million for their 11 defensive starters. Harris owns the Colts' highest cap charge, at $1.6 million, and there are six Tampa Bay starters above that. Just three Indianapolis starters have cap values of $1 million. The Bucs have four players in excess of $3.3 million.

	“	When he came here, the kitchen was a mess, and no one wanted to do the dishes. He cleaned it up and made it a place where everyone wanted a place at the table. And now it looks like he's done it again. ”
		—Bucs DT Warren Sapp, on Colts coach Tony Dungy

In fact, the total cap charge for Tampa Bay's two highest paid defenders, Sapp ($6.6 million) and Lynch ($4.93 million), is $2 million-plus more in cap values than the Colts have invested in their entire starting lineup.

Big bucks and the perquisites that accompany them -- like the Pro Bowl recognition that Tampa Bay veterans now take for granted -- should come in time for Colts players.

Such disparate fiscal status is reflective of the success of the Tampa Bay defense, a unit of great accomplishment, and one that likely will be recalled years from now as one of the greatest defenses of the modern era. It is the unit the young Colts aspire to be, one that the outspoken Harper insists Indianapolis will grow into.

That is not surprising, given that the Colts are now in their second season operating in the Dungy- and Ron Meeks-designed defense, and players are reacting to what occurs in front of them now, as opposed to having to think about their responsibilities. Allowed strong-side linebacker Marcus Washington: "Last year, it was more like, 'OK, I think that this is what I'm supposed to be doing on this call.' This year, we all know the defense better, and there's not that kind of mental paralysis. You see the ball, you react, and you go."

In a nutshell, those are the simplistic tenets of the "Cover 2" scheme, a defense that by its design should allow newcomers to progress more rapidly. The beauty of the defense is that there are fewer moving parts and, thus, less chance of error. The scheme is strictly one-gap, meaning front four players don't have to control lanes to either side, and are free to penetrate more readily.

In the backside, the Colts play about 90 percent zone, allowing the secondary a better view of the football because they "face up" on the action. Dungy characteristically stacks his linebackers, so they do not have to shed blockers and fight through the inherent trash at the line of scrimmage, and can play smaller and quicker.

Dungy once noted that, if a player could simply count to three, he could perform in the "Cover 2." If he could count to three pretty fast, Dungy joked, then he could play it well. Third-year free safety Idrees Bashir, a starter since his rookie season and the kind of player with hitting ability and range who should prosper under Dungy, acknowledged that things are more facile in the scheme.

Truth be told, in scrutinizing videotape of the two defenses, Tampa Bay has strayed in some ways from the Dungy framework. Although the Dungy imprint remains constant in the Bucs approach, coordinator Monte Kiffin has placed his impressive fingerprint more and more every season on the Tampa Bay scheme.

There currently may be three or four NFL defenses -- and, obviously, Indianapolis is chief among them -- who play a higher percentage of pure "Cover 2" than does Tampa Bay. Those who continue to tout the "Cover 2" as the Tampa Bay staple are not wrong, but are somewhat misleading, since the Bucs have become more an amalgam defense in this post-Dungy era.

Under the brilliant Kiffin, the NFL's highest paid assistant coach and deservedly so, the Bucs have blended in some "man" coverages and blitz more frequently than in the past. The foundation remains in place but the philosophy has spun away from pure "Cover 2" and evolved into something that is part Dungy but perhaps bigger part Kiffin now. Tampa Bay certainly gambles more now than it did in Dungy's tenure, but the players understand from whence their aggressiveness sprang, and still pay ample respect o the "Cover 2."

And also to the Colts, who have taken to the scheme quite nicely, and have taken the NFL by surprise with their defensive success over the season's first month.

"That's a hungry bunch," Sapp said. "And what they're doing is feeding in to what Tony wants and expects. When he came here, the kitchen was a mess, and no one wanted to do the dishes. He cleaned it up and made it a place where everyone wanted a place at the table. And now it looks like he's done it again."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.