Tim Brown Hints Bill Callahan Sabotaged Super Bowl XXXVII

According to former Raiders receiver Tim Brown, who appeared in an interview on Sirius XM on Saturday, the team believed they could easily win Super Bowl XXXVII by running the ball down the throats of the Bucs. The Raiders' offensive line was much bigger than the Bucs, and the Raiders boasted a backfield duo of Charlie Garner and Tyrone Wheatly, not to mention one of the best short yardage backs in the game, Zack Crockett.

"We get our game plan for victory on Monday, and the game plan says we're gonna run the ball," Brown said. "We averaged 340 [pounds] on the offensive line, they averaged 280 [on the defensive line]. We're all happy with that, everybody is excited."

Yet, according to Brown, that game plan was retracted by then head coach Bill Callahan, on the Friday before they took the field and rather than run the ball in order to win, Callahan decided he was going to "throw the ball 60 times".

"The facts are what they are, that less than 36 hours before the game we changed our game plan. And we go into that game absolutely knowing that we have no shot.

"We all called it sabotage . . . because Callahan and Gruden were good friends," Brown said. "And Callahan had a big problem with the Raiders, you know, hated the Raiders. You know, only came because Gruden made him come. Literally walked off the field on us a couple of times during the season when he first got there, the first couple years."

Brown also stated that the change in game plan had a particularly negative effect on Robbins, who begged the coach not to make the change, noting that he could not possibly run the line and make his calls under the new plan.

"Barret Robbins begged Coach Callahan, ‘Do not do this to me. I don't have time to make my calls, to get my calls ready. You can't do this to me on Friday. We haven't practiced full speed, we can't get this done.'

"All I'm saying is those are the facts of what happened Super Bowl week. So our ire wasn't towards Barret Robbins, it was towards Bill Callahan. Because we feel as if he wouldn't have did what he did, then Barret wouldn't have done what he did."

While Brown does not directly attribute Robbins going off the deep end to Callahan's decision, the inference is clear.

Source: SBNation.com

 

"Throw the ball 60 times" doesn't sound like a gameplan. Not with the rushing attack the Raiders had that year. If that's true Callahan is the biggest butthole in the NFL.

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Wow...I'd like to hear other players speak on this. Rich Gannon maybe?

 

i agree ward. these are bordering on serious allegations. he's basically saying bill callahan purposely lost a super bowl and callahan is still employed in the league.

 

This is ridiculous. Wonder what his Wunderlich score was, because that was a stupid thing to say.

 

Gannon said he doesn't believe that Callahan would do that and said that Bill was a good coach. I didn't hear if he addressed the issue about the change of the game plan...

 

[MENTION=2175]CaptainStubing[/MENTION] -

Hopefully this works...it may take a few minutes to process through, but here is the link to a 5 minute clip of Gannon's comments this morning from his radio show...

http://soundcloud.com/86ward/rich-gannon-on-super-bowl-37/s-M1pYC

 

How come Timmy didn't bring this up when he was with Tampa

 

well, charlie garner is somewhat supporting brown's statement:

“There may be something to what Mr. Brown has been saying,” Garner told 97.5 The Fanatic in Philly. “I really don’t know the validity of which he despised the Raiders but I also know that he didn’t want to be there."

 

This has the potential to get "good." I tend to think Gannon is taking the "company" line and not looking to throw individuals under the bus...

 

well, i remember hearing about callahan doing this (changing the game plan at the last minute) within a few months after the super bowl, but most people said it was just a miscalculation/bad game plan. i'm not sure i ever heard anyone claim callahan did it to purposely lose. that's a serious allegation that could cause callahan to get banned from the league for life if found true.

 

also, this contradicts everything that was reported at that time ............ at the time, the main reason the raiders coaches/players said they changed the game plan is BECAUSE robbins went AWOL. Brown is now saying robbins went awol BECAUSE of the game plan change. You would think that someone would have hinted/leaked something about all of this if the reason robbins went awol was because of the game plan change .......... something isn't adding up

 

Now Jerry Rice is backing Brown...

http://gridironfans.com/forums/oakland-raiders/211926-jerry-rice-backs-tim-brown-claim-bill.html

 

So let's break it down a little bit...

Below is the first series that Oakland has the ball. For a team that allegedly was going to "pound" the ball on the ground against a "smaller" Bucs team, they came out passing three times in a row and then finally decided to run the ball with very little success. Once with Garner for a yard and then once with Gannon for two yards. Let's just call that a planned run for argument sake.
Oakland: 13:35
1-10 TB36 (13:35) R.Gannon 8 pass to C.Garner (B.Kelly).
2-2 TB28 (13:00) R.Gannon pass to T.Brown incomplete.
3-2 TB28 (12:55) R.Gannon 9 pass to T.Brown (D.Smith, R.Barber).
1-10 TB19 (12:21) C.Garner 1 rush left tackle (G.Spires).
2-9 TB18 (11:42) R.Gannon 2 rush (G.Spires).
3-7 TB16 (10:56) R.Gannon sacked, loss of 6 (S.Rice).
4-13 TB22 (10:44) S.Janikowski, 40-yard FG (C-A.Treu, H-S.Lechler)(4:20).

Second Series - 3 straight passes. So the Raiders have opened the game here with 7 passes and 2 rushes.
Oakland: 7:51
1-10 O30 (7:46) R.Gannon 6 pass to C.Garner (D.Brooks).
2-4 O36 (7:11) R.Gannon pass to J.Rice incomplete.
3-4 O36 (7:03) R.Gannon sacked, loss of 5 (G.Spires).
4-9 O31 (6:45) S.Lechler 53 punt (C-A.Treu), K.Williams fair catch.

Third series - 2 rushes and an incomplete pbutt. Please note that Crockett is running the ball here who only had 48 rushes on the season for 145 yards...opposed to their leading rushers: Wheatley (159 for 678), Garner (120 for 553) and Fargas (40 for 203). A little strange to me that they've gone 3 series and Garner has touched the ball once on a rush and Wheatley...nothing.
Oakland: 5:46
1-10 TB49 (5:46) Z.Crockett 4 rush right guard (S.Rice).
2-6 TB45 (5:10) Z.Crockett 2 rush right tackle (S.Quarles).
3-4 TB43 (4:27) R.Gannon pass to J.Porter incomplete (G.Spires).
4-4 TB43 (4:20) S.Lechler 27 punt (C-A.Treu), K.Williams fair catch.

Fourth series and end of the first quarter...Pass, Rush, Interception.
Oakland: 1:35
1-10 O49 (1:35) R.Gannon 8 pass to C.Garner (B.Kelly).
2-2 TB43 (0:57) C.Garner rush right tackle, no gain (S.Rice).
3-2 TB43 (0:18) R.Gannon pass to D.Jolley intercepted at TB40, D.Jackson 9 return (A.Treu, F.Middleton).

So to recap the first quarter, for a team that, again, is out to pound the ball: 10 pass attempts, 5 rushes. For the game, the Raiders only ran the ball 11 times and passed for 44. What I find extremely strange is that Wheatley didn't rush the ball once. Not once. Garner handled the ball 7 times, but Wheatley didn't handle the ball at all. Not until 8:33 in the 4th quarter on a pass reception from Gannon. I don't recall if Wheatley was injured, but it's strange IMO that he didn't touch the ball.

Something definitely changed somewhere along the line...it's not like they tried to run the ball early on and then tried to adjust the game plan...they came out passing and stuck to that plan the whole game. Not quite 60 times, but nonetheless, it was a pass first game plan.