San Diego — At halftime of the Super Bowl, all-pro safety John Lynch did a quick interview and delivered an indictment.

His team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, had played 30 minutes of football against the Oakland Raiders, the best offensive side in the National Football League and one of the best, statistically, in league history.

And according to Lynch, every play the Raiders had run to that point was one Tampa's defence had practised against during the preceding week.

No surprises. That shouldn't ever happen -- never mind in the biggest game of the year.

In general, far too much is made of coaching in the NFL, a game in which the cult of the strategic genius has on more than one occasion been allowed to overshadow the players.

The fact is, more championships have been won by superior talent, by great individual efforts, by raw emotion or by dumb luck than by the creative arrangement of x's and o's.

This time, though, all hosannas to Jon Gruden of the Bucs, at age 39, the youngest man to guide a team to a Super Bowl championship, routing the Raiders 48-21. (Talk about setting an unfortunate precedent. Maybe all of us ought to try waking up at 3:17 a.m. for a while.)

And while apportioning blame on the other side, save a great big slice for Bill Callahan, Gruden's old pal and mentor, who was utterly outfoxed yesterday.

It will be widely noted that, until this season, Gruden worked for the Raiders before falling out of favour with the club's managing general partner and eccentric guru, Al Davis.

"That's a long story," Gruden said. "Not worth talking about tonight."

Meanwhile, the Buccaneers had soured on Tony Dungy, the architect of their great defence, but a flop in the playoffs. After failing to land Bill Parcells and losing patience with Steve Mariucci, they bought Gruden from Oakland for dollars and draft picks. "Jon Gruden came in in a tough situation," Lynch said, "because of the affection we had for [Dungy]. . . . But he made us all believe that we could do it from day 1."

"He came from heaven," the Buccaneers' owner, Malcolm Glazer, said during the giddy postgame celebration, "and he brought us to heaven. . . . We were waiting for the right man, and the right man came. Jon Gruden."

Still, Gruden's familiarity with the Oakland players and his knowledge of what they were doing a year ago don't fully explain how he and his staff devised a game plan to neutralize Rich Gannon and company.

Nor does it explain why Callahan and his staff had nothing in their repertoire to even cause the Bucs to blink.

The game was decided for all intents and purposes in the second quarter.

After a tentative beginning by both teams, with both Gannon and Tampa quarterback Brad Johnson struggling, a pattern began to emerge.

Gannon, who for most of the season had the luxury of sitting back and choosing from a tremendous array of options -- Jerry Rice, Tim Brown, Jerry Porter and Charlie Garner -- found his first and second choices covered, and he was smothered before he could look to a third.

As the Oakland offence stalled, its defence seemed to become weary, spending more and more time on the field during what began as a hot afternoon. And slowly, conservatively, the Buccaneers began to move the ball on offence.

A touchdown on their final drive of the first half and another on their first drive of the second were the killing blows. All the while, Callahan and his staff struggled to adjust. (The Raiders went three-and-out after they received the second-half kickoff, which made it seem as if the Bucs must have been eavesdropping on their dressing room strategy session during the break.) Gannon, coming off one of the best statistical seasons ever for an NFL quarterback, finished with five interceptions, an unfortunate Super Bowl record, three of which were returned for touchdowns. In truth, though, on most plays he seemed to have nowhere safe to throw the ball.

For the Raider Nation, in what had seemed all week like a home-field Super Bowl, it was a crushing loss and pointed toward an uncertain future for the franchise. Davis is in his 70s, there are rumours that he might retire and several of the stars of the team are in the final stages of their careers.

For the Bucs, though, the comparisons will be flattering, and next season beckons brightly. The list of the greatest defensive teams to win the Super Bowl includes the Baltimore Ravens of two years ago and the Chicago Bears of 1985-86, but neither of those clubs had to face the best offensive team in the league or even a great quarterback in the Super Bowl.

These guys did and made it look easy, and they ought to be back nearly intact next year.

"We're going to get a lot better," Gruden said. "I can promise you that."