NFL: Tampa players will face former team in Jacksonville

Those memories and emotions continue to tug at the three Tampa Bay Buccaneers making their return to the First Coast city tonight in another must-win game for the Bucs.

The Jaguars are the second youngest expansion franchise behind the Houston Texans, but have packed a lot of highlights into nine seasons.

For wide receivers Keenan McCardell and Reggie Barlow and center John Wade, Jacksonville is where they truly got their starts in the NFL. Barlow and Wade began their careers as rookies with the Jaguars, and McCardell established himself as an elite receiver there after journeyman stints in Washington and Cleveland.

Now they're going back as members of the visiting team for the first time in a regular season game. The Bucs (5-6) will try to beat the Jaguars (2-9) and win two consecutive games for the first time this season under head coach Jon Gruden.

"I went to the visitors locker room one time, they used to run our annual physicals there, so it'll be kind of weird, even though I've been gone from Jacksonville for a couple of years," said Barlow, who still holds numerous Jaguars records in the punt return and kickoff return category. "But it'll be weird coming out of the visitors locker room and seeing the fans go against me for a change. When I was there they were always cheering for us."

Barlow isn't sure what kind of reception he, McCardell and Wade will get from the home fans. But he said based on past experience when he saw former players return with different teams they got booed.

McCardell said he experienced a strange feeling last year when the Bucs and Jaguars met in Jacksonville for a preseason game. That was his first season with Tampa Bay after six highly productive seasons in Jacksonville (1996-2001) as one part of a record-setting tandem with Jimmy Smith.

"I know what they have to do, because I'm on the opposing team," said McCardell, who was released by the Jags in a cost-cutting measure during the summer of 2002. "But if they give me an ovation, a standing ovation or even just a cheer, it would mean something, because I left something there. I think I left a good taste in their mouth."

He and Smith are on the verge of reaching a milestone for receivers with their 700th career receptions. McCardell has 698 and Smith has 697 heading into Sunday night, and they both spoke of the irony should they reach 700 in the same game on the field they shined on together.

During their most successful years from 1996-99, when Jacksonville made the playoffs four straight years and reached the AFC Championship twice, Smith and McCardell were known as "Thunder and Lightning."

"I was 'Lightning' because I was faster and Keenan was 'Thunder' because he made the big third-down clutch catches over the middle," Smith said on Wednesday's conference call with the Tampa Bay media. "I just want to beat him to 700 because I know what he's thinking. I know Keenan and when we both made it to 600 last year, in the same week, he called me to congratulate me but also to let me know he got there, too. It was very important for him to let me know that."

Barlow was a rookie in 1996 and learned the ropes from Smith and McCardell. He also developed the skills he now uses as the Bucs' punt returner and said he is looking forward to playing well against his former team on Sunday.

That '96 season ranks as Barlow's most memorable because that was the year Jacksonville sat at 4-7 after 11 games then made an improbable run all the way to the AFC Championship. He even pointed out another similarity between that season and this one for the Bucs, which should give Bucs fans hope down the stretch.

"What's so strange about it is we had (vocal wide receiver) Andre Rison there at the time and he got released after maybe about eight games (actually 10 games, and on the same date, Nov. 18, as when Tampa Bay deactivated Keyshawn Johnson last week)," Barlow recalled. "You understand what I'm saying. It's a similar situation to what just happened here with Key, he had a similar personality. And right after that we went on a run and we snuck into the playoffs."

Wade was drafted by the Jaguars in 1998 in the fifth round and spent his first five seasons there before being signed by the Bucs last offseason as an unrestricted free agent. He said he doesn't have the same emotional attachments to his former team as Barlow and McCardell.

The 6-foot-5, 299-pound center only remembers the bad feeling he had in 2000, the year after the Jaguars went 14-2 and lost to Tennessee in the AFC Championship. Jacksonville struggled to a 7-9 record, missed the playoffs, and Wade missed most of the season with a foot injury.

"They probably aren't even going to remember me because I play on the offensive line," Wade said. "It's not going to be the biggest difference for me other than coming out of the locker room and standing on the other sideline. It's another game on another Sunday against an opponent that we need to go out and execute against."

Conflicting emotions, indeed, but all three still will have a slightly elevated pulse at kickoff.