Sunday November 8, 1987 - St. Louis Cardinals vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Gameday Report

LOSS - Tampa Bay Buccaneers 28 St. Louis Cardinals 31

With the Cardinals down by 25 points in the fourth quarter, quarterback Neil Lomax threw for three touchdowns in a come-from-behind win. One of the touchdowns was to tight end Robert Awalt, the other two to league reception leader J.T. Smith. Donald Igwebuike's potential game-tying 53-yard field goal attempt bounced off the crossbar as time ran out.

The Cardinals came in on a three-game losing streak, while the Buccaneers entered the game leading the league in takeaways. The attendance of 22,449 was the Cardinals' lowest in four years, the team having announced the previous week their plans to move to another city.

Detectives were assigned to guard Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill due to death threats.

Irritation over DeBerg's celebrations after his three touchdown passes provided inspiration to some of the Cardinals, who commented, "he's going to lose his job to Vinny Testaverde in a couple of weeks anyway". Awalt caught nine passes for 124 yards, while Smith caught eight passes for 96 yards. Said coach Perkins of his team's performance, "...they whipped us in every phase of the game. Even down 28–3, they were playing better football than we were".

After the Buccaneers turned three consecutive potential blowout wins into nail-biters, safety Rick Woods said that the team seemed to be playing not to lose instead of playing to win. As an example, he noted that many players turned to see how much time was left on the clock after Cardinals linebacker Niko Noga returned a James Wilder fumble for a touchdown.

The next week, Woods was demoted to the taxi squad. Offensive tackle Rob Taylor suffered a strained medial collateral ligament, and center Randy Grimes was also out for the fourth quarter with a hyperextended knee. "We should have gotten a lot more hurt", Perkins said, and accused his players of allowing positive press coverage to inflate their egos and cloud their judgments.

The 25-point lead, if it had held, would have represented the largest margin of victory in a Buccaneers road win. Instead, it became the largest fourth-quarter comeback in NFL history.

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GAMEDAY BRIEF

WEATHER: Partly Cloudy - 60°F. - Humidity 54% - Wind S. 10-15 mph Wind Chill 61°F.

OFFICALS

REFEREE: Pat Haggerty
UMPIRE: Neil Gereb
HEAD LINESMAN: Sid Semon
LINE JUDGE: Dave Hawk
BACK JUDGE: Banks Williams
FIELD JUDGE: Bernie Kukar
SIDE JUDGE: Aaron Pointer

SCORING

BUCCANEERS: 0:22-1Q Carrier 5 pass from DeBerg (Igwebuike kick)
BUCCANEERS: 5:10-2Q Carter 3 pass from DeBerg (Igwebuike kick)
CARDINALS: 0:20-2Q Gallery FG31
BUCCANEERS: 9:59-3Q Smith 34 pass from DeBerg (Igwebuike kick)
BUCCANEERS: 1:51-3Q Smith 3 run (Igwebuike kick)
CARDINALS: 12:42-4Q Awalt 4 pass from Lomax (Gallery kick)
CARDINALS: 11:39-4Q Noga 23 fumble recovery (Gallery kick)
CARDINALS: 8:18-4Q Smith 11 pass from Lomax (Gallery kick)
CARDINALS: 1:01-4Q Smith 17 pass from Lomax (Gallery kick)

STARTERS OFFENSE

WR: #81 P. Freeman
LT: #72 R. Taylor
LG: #66 G. Yarno
C: #60 R. Grimes
RG: #68 R Mallory
RT: #73 R. Heller
TE: #86 C. Magee
TE: #80 S. Holloway
WR: #87 G. Carter
QB: #17 S. DeBerg
FB: #32 J. Wilder

STARTERS DEFENSE

LE: #78 J. Cannon
NT: #94 M. Stensrud
RE: #90 R. Holmes
LOLB: #51 C. Washington
LILB: #58 J. Davis
RILB: #54 E. Randle
ROLB: #57 W. Moss
LC: #29 R. Reynolds
RC: #22 R. Jones
SS: #33 B. Kemp
FS: #20 R. Woods

SUBSTITUTIONS

#25 Bobby Howard, 1 Igwebuike, 5 Garcia, 23 Anderson, 24 Tripoli, 31 Gordon, 35 Smith, 36 Futrell, 50 Turk, 52 Brantley, 56 Walker, 70 Swayne, 75 Kellin, 77 Maarleveld, 79 Goode, 83 Miller, 84 Hill, 89 Carrier, 91 Gant, 93 Sileo

DID NOT PLAY

11 Shula, 14 Testaverde, 42 Bartalo

INACTIVE

39 Austin, 59 Murphy, 74 Powell, 82 Hall, 85 G.Taylor

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING

BUCCANEERS: Wilder 11-49, Smith 19-48, DeBerg 1-(-1), #25 Bobby Howard 1-(-3), Hill 1-(-10).
CARDINALS: Mitchell 17-79, Ferrell 9-33, Lomax 4-23, Wolfley 1-2.

PASSING

BUCCANEERS: DeBerg 37-23-303-0-3.
CARDINALS: Lomax 36-25-314-1-3.

RECIEVING

BUCCANEERS: Wilder 6-87, Carter 6-82, Hill 4-56, Smith 3-43, Howard 2-19, Magee 1-11, Carrier 1-5.
CARDINALS: Awalt 9-124, Smith 8-96, Mitchell 4-58, Holmes 4-36.

INTERCEPTIONS

BUCCANEERS: Jones 1-9.
CARDINALS: none.

KICK RETURNS

BUCCANEERS: Futrell 3-54, Miller 1-22.
CARDINALS: Sikahema 3-70, McAdoo 2-51.

PUNT RETURNS

BUCCANEERS: Futrell 1-5.
CARDINALS: Sikahema 2-12.

SACKS

BUCCANEERS: Washington 2-16, Holmes 1-11, Moss 1-9.
CARDINALS: Greer 1-9.