Hardy Nickerson can't recall ever seeing Barry Sanders more determined.
Carry by carry, the four-time NFL rushing champion moved toward a goal of 2,000 yards for the season, taking the playoff-bound Detroit Lions along for the ride."You could see the way he was running how hungry he was," Nickerson, Tampa Bay's All-Pro linebacker, said. "It looked like every step he was taking with purpose."
Sanders is second on the league career rushing list, trailing only Walter Payton, in large part because of the Buccaneers, who have yielded 1,998 of the 13,778 yards he's gained since entering the NFL in 1989.
Last week, he became the third player to rush for more than 2,000 in a season, gaining 184 against the New York Jets in a victory that clinched a playoff berth for the Lions, who face Tampa Bay in Sunday's NFC wild-card game.
"He's that nuclear weapon that keeps them in every game," Bucs coach Tony Dungy said. "You do have other players that you have to worry about. You have other great players on their team, but he's the key, no question about it."
It took Bobby Ross, in his first season as coach of the Lions, two games to figure that out.
Sanders was held to a total of 53 yards the first two weeks, including only 20 yards on 10 attempts in a loss to Tampa Bay Sept. 7, before finishing the year with 14 consecutive 100-yard games to run his season total to 2,053.
One of his most productive games of the season predictably came in a rematch against the Bucs, when he scored on runs of 80 and 82 yards that highlighted a 24-carry, 215-yard performance.
"You have to take your hat off to him," Dungy said. "Everyone goes in with the idea they're going to stop him. Everyone has game plans designed to do it. Everyone stops him for a period of time in the game, a quarter, a quarter and a half, a half. But no one's been able to hold him down.
"If you look at a lot of his runs, they're getting him through the line of scrimmage. But where he just amazes you is just how many people he can make miss in the secondary. That's what separates him from the other guys in the league. The guys who make 15-yard runs, he takes them all the way."
The Bucs were the last team to hold the Associated Press Offensive Player of the Year and league co-MVP - with Green Bay's Brett Favre - under 100 yards.