Andy Kent: Bucs need to push the panic button

Hogwash.

When you are the defending Super Bowl champions and a mediocre 4-4 record is staring back at you from the mirror, you better start worrying. And when Carolina, at 6-2, can take a three-game lead on you in the NFC South, you better consider this a must-win game.

"You kind of have to be careful with your words and don't say 'must-win,' or 'we've got to have this win,' until maybe the last game," Johnson said Wednesday.

Two weeks ago after the Bucs blanked the Dallas Cowboys at home, 16-0, cornerback Ronde Barber said the next day he could sense an abundance of complacency and overconfidence on the team. Defensive end Simeon Rice agreed with Barber a couple of days later, and along with others in the locker room said he felt that would be corrected.

Rewind to last Sunday's home game against the New Orleans Saints, and one would be hard pressed to find any evidence of that problem being corrected. Six turnovers, numerous penalties and uncharacteristic play from reliable veterans like Johnson all led to an ugly 17-14 division loss.

"We're tired of losing. We don't like losing, especially the way we've lost," said Bucs head coach Jon Gruden on Wednesday. "We've got a lot to prove and we've got to prove it now. Again, all the problems we have are right in the mirror and we've got to address those problems quickly."

Amen, brother

Only some of Gruden's disciples don't appear to be listening. Too many of the Bucs players feel compelled to bring up the past and point out the team's three-year run, from 1999-2001, when they started off 3-4 and got hot in the end.

Of course one thing they conveniently leave out is how those teams weren't able to finish the deal in the playoffs because they expended so much energy just making it in.

Last year, the Bucs were 6-2 at the halfway point of the season. They still needed help getting the first-round bye, but the team had enough conserved energy to storm through the divisional round, the NFC Championship and the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII.

What Tampa Bay has done now, however, has created a scenario in which only another long winning streak like the one it put together in '99 (six games) will even give the Bucs a shot at making the playoffs.

Pro Bowl linebacker Derrick Brooks said: "When you start using that 'must-win,' it creates a sense of panic. We're not panicking by any stretch of the imagination."

Somebody better break the glass protecting that panic button, because if the Bucs don't push it now, the Panthers will make them wish they had.