Tim Brown's wild claims about his Raiders coach possibly sabotaging Super Bowl XXXVII may have just gotten a tad more credible.
Yesterday, Jerry Rice, also a member of those 2002 AFC champions and judged by many to be the greatest player in NFL history, said he agreed with Brown's comments made over the weekend on SiriusXM Radio.
That Raiders team was coached by Bill Callahan, the former Jets' assistant who is now the Cowboys' offensive line coach.
"For some reason — and I don't know why — Bill Callahan did not like me," Rice, the Hall of Famer said on ESPN's "NFL Live." "In a way, maybe because he didn't like the Raiders, he decided, 'Maybe we should sabotage this a little bit and let Jon Gruden go out and win this one.' "
AP
DIRTY RICE: Hall of Famer Jerry Rice (here during Super Bowl XXXVII) backed up teammate Tim Brown's claim that Raiders coach Bill Callahan wanted to sabotage his team to let the Buccaneers, coached by Callahan's close friend Jon Gruden, win. The Bucs triumphed, 48-21.
REUTERS
Bill Callahan
Last night, Callahan, who is at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., responded in a statement saying he was "shocked and saddened" by the allegations. He called suggestions he wasn't trying to win the game "ludicrous and defamatory."
"I think it would be in the best interests of all, including the game America loves, that these allegations be retracted immediately," he said.
The Raiders met Gruden's Buccaneers in that Super Bowl and, for the previous four seasons, Gruden had been the Raiders' coach. Brown said Callahan did not want to be in Oakland and was only there because his close friend Gruden "made him come."
Rice also supported Brown's claim the game plan, which originally called for the Raiders to run the ball heavily, was changed to a pass-oriented attack on the Friday before the Super Bowl, a move that shocked the Oakland players because, as Rice said, "you worked all week long on running the football."
On that Friday, Callahan put in a new plan that had the team throwing the ball more than 60 times. The Raiders lost, 48-21.
"Why would you wait to the last second to change the game plan?" Rice said.
Rice also said he believed Callahan's decision to change the game plan at the last minute led to center Barrett Robbins being a no-show for the game. Robbins, who was later diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, begged Callahan not to change the game plan because there wasn't enough time to prepare, Rice said.
But quarterback Rich Gannon, who was the NFL's MVP that season when he threw for 4,689 yards and the Raiders led the league in passing, said on SiriusXM he didn't agree with his teammates' claims.
"In terms of Bill Callahan, let me just say this: He was a good football coach, he was a good man," said Gannon, now an NFL analyst for CBS. "We all wanted to win.
"I think what happened was that we came out and tried to run the football early in that game, we didn't have a lot of success," Gannon said. "We fell behind in the game and at that point we started throwing the ball too much."
Where Gannon did admit the Raiders dropped the ball was in not changing the language used for calls at the line of scrimmage. He said Callahan didn't change any of the offensive terminology the Raiders used. As a result, the Bucs — tutored by Gruden — knew what was coming when Gannon audibled.
"So much of our verbiage and terminology was a carryover from what Jon Gruden had installed in terms of our run checks, and so we were calling certain plays and guys like Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks were calling out the runs," Gannon said.
Brown tried to back away some from the word "sabotage" yesterday in a Dallas radio interview, but still questioned Callahan's loyalty to the Raiders at the time. But Brown did say "sabotage" was the word used a lot inside the Raiders' locker room.
"I like Tim Brown. Great guy, great teammate," former Raiders' linebacker Bill Romanowski told ESPN. "But he is delusional to think that Bill Callahan would give up the biggest opportunity of his life... to be a Super Bowl-winning coach."
dburke@nypost.com
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