The question didn't give him the happy feet he showed against the Bucs defensive line, but he didn't have answers for why he had his worst game in the biggest game of his life.

"Obviously, it was not our night," Gannon said. "I give a lot of credit to the Buccaneers -- they played a great game. We were just absolutely terrible. It was a nightmarish performance. I think we only had three first downs in the first half, and we were just completely out of rhythm. We just couldn't generate much offense."

Gannon had the single greatest season for a quarterback in terms of completing passes. He had 418 completions in the regular season and seemed to be unstoppable using his three- and five-step drops to fire completions. The Dolphins showed ways to stop him in December by having Sam Madison and Patrick Surtain match up against their receivers with physical man-to-man coverages and have Jason Taylor whip left tackle Barry Sims at defense end.

	“	Our guys fought hard up front. It's a great defensive line. I give Monte Kiffin a lot of credit. He put a game plan together and it kept us off balance. We couldn't get into rhythm like we usually do. ”
		— Rich Gannon, Raiders quarterback

Well, the Bucs don't use as much man coverage, but they had even better results. Gannon had 29 completions but five went as interceptions to Bucs defenders. He threw five touchdown passes, but three went to Bucs defenders.

"If you get some heat on quarterbacks you can make great quarterbacks good quarterbacks, or make good quarterbacks average quarterbacks or make average quarterbacks poor quarterbacks," Gannon said.

The Bucs' four-man rush applied so much pressure on Gannon that it took him from great to poor. Actually, the Bucs made Gannon look like every other quarterback they played. The Bucs held quarterbacks this season to a 48.4 rating and had 31 interceptions compared to 10 touchdown passes.

Gannon had a 48.9 quarterback rating and was sacked five times. Consider him lucky. It could have been worse. Gannon was one of the first ones to make it to the podium after the game. He could have been intercepted for a sixth time.

The destruction of Gannon was surgical. To him and the Raiders, it was nightmarish. On the Raiders' first offensive possession, Bucs defensive end Simeon Rice beat left tackle Barry Sims with an inside move on a third down and got his first of two sacks. The Raiders settled for a 40-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead.

Gannon's protection broke down the rest of the game and the Bucs scored 34 consecutive points.

"Our guys fought hard up front," Gannon said. "It's a great defensive line. I give Monte Kiffin a lot of credit. He put a game plan together and it kept us off balance. We couldn't get into rhythm like we usually do."

Sting played at halftime. He sang his old "SOS" song. Gannon could have written the words during his horrible first half. After the first series, Gannon was sending distress signals with his feet because of the pressure being applied by the Bucs defense.

The league's No. 1 offense had 15 plays and 29 yards in the first quarter. They improved in the second quarter to 33 yards on 15 plays. By halftime, they were losing 20-3, and Gannon had only seven completions of 17 attempts for 44 net yards. His two interceptions gave him a horrible first-half quarterback rating of 10.5.

"Rich is 37 and he isn't as fast he was used to be with his feet," Kiffin said. "I'm not as fast as I used to be either. We felt that if we got some pressure on him, he would get his feet moving early and making mistakes."

That's exactly what happened. Even though he threw only 17 first-half passes, he was hit six times, knocked down five and sacked three. As time went on, the Bucs confused him with their defensive schemes.

"We didn't want to throw on every down and we felt we had to run tonight," Gannon said. "We only generated 18 yards of rushing in the first half. We didn't score like we usually do."

Part of the problem was losing his Pro Bowl center Barret Robbins, who missed practice Saturday and is reportedly in an area hospital. Coach Bill Callahan ordered him back to Oakland and told him he wouldn't play. Actually, Adam Treu did a respectable job and didn't get beaten for a sack until late in the fourth quarter when Warren Sapp got to Gannon.

"Their speed on defense is very, very good, but we knew that coming in," Gannon said. "I won't take anything away from them on defense. But we weren't very good offensively. We just were out of rhythm and out of sync and couldn't generate any offense."

The breakdowns on offense were many. Defensive end Greg Spires got by Pro Bowl right tackle Lincoln Kennedy a couple of times. Earlier this week, Kennedy said he was thinking about retirement.

After the game, he said. "I've got to come back next year and redeem my career."

Gannon admitted afterward his decision-making wasn't good.

The classic example came on the second interception by safety Dexter Jackson. The Raiders were in a "Cover 3" in which three defensive backs cover the back third of the field. Gannon pump faked left. He spotted cornerback Ronde Barber blitzing to his right, and he thought he had Jerry Porter in single coverage on the right side.

Wrong. Jackson had the middle third, read Gannon's eyes and ran in front of Porter for an interception. The first interception by Gannon came on a play in which Rice beat Sims and applied pressure on Gannon. Gannon rushed a throw toward tight end Doug Jolley, who was covered in man by Jackson.

"People think we just play 'Cover 2', but we played a lot of 'Cover 3' today," Kiffin said. "It really is just to give Gannon different looks. We got good pressure today. We have good team speed and we have really good anticipation. Both of our safeties do a nice job of anticipating. All of our players have good ball skills and when we draft we look for guys with good ball skills and guys that can tackle. We just don't want cover guys."

Gannon sat at his podium answering questions, but he didn't have answers.

"We were all disappointed," Gannon said. "This organization is committed to winning. We thought we needed to generate a score on the first drive of the second half."

Gannon completed his first two passes of the half for 8 yards. Bucs cornerback Brian Kelly knocked away a pass intended for Marcus Knight. The three-and-out was followed by an 89-yard touchdown drive by the Bucs.

"I hate to have an exhibition like that," Gannon said. "I don't know how to explain it."

The Bucs did. They got the pressure. They got the interceptions. They got the victory.

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.