It seems that the 2002 Raiders aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye 10 years after they made, and lost, the Super Bowl.
On Monday, Tim Brown told SiriusXM NFL Radio that he believed Bill Callahan sabotaged Super Bowl XXXVII because he didn’t like the Raiders’ organization, and because he was friends with Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden. While Bill Romanowski, Rich Gannon, Zack Crockett and an anonymous player disagreed with Brown’s assertion, Jerry Rice was on the same page as his fellow wide receiver.
Rice was on ESPN’s NFL Live on Tuesday, where he reinforced much of what Brown had said. Rice said Callahan changed the game plan from being run heavy to pass heavy the Friday before the Super Bowl. He also said that Barrett Robbins, the center who disappeared the Saturday before the Super Bowl, was the most upset over the change. Rice believed that the game plan change is what caused Robbins to leave for Mexico because of the added pressure of learning the new game plan in two days.
Rice told ESPN he and Brown had never confronted Callahan about the supposed sabotage because they never had the opportunity. He did recall that Callahan had an issue with the Raiders, and that he had left the field before games were over while he was still a coordinator under Gruden.
Rice stopped short of saying that he believed that Callahan sabotaged the Super Bowl, but he did say that if Brown was suspicious, he would have to believe the Raider great.
It’s likely this controversy won’t end any time soon, and we would expect to hear from many former Raiders over the next two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. So far, it’s Brown and Rice against four Raiders, with Charlie Garner falling somewhere in the middle.
Photo via Facebook/JerryRice
