Tim Brown — Bill Callahan ‘sabotaged’ Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII loss – ESPN.

Sounds like the Raiders were planning on running the ball, until the Friday before the game when Coach Callahan changed the entire game plan. Such a move with such little time is unprecedented, let alone unheard of.

“But the facts are what they are, that less than 36 hours before the game we changed our game plan. And we go into that game absolutely knowing that we have no shot. That the only shot we had if Tampa Bay didn’t show up,” he said.

Brown said center Barret Robbins, who disappeared from the team in the days before the game and did not play, begged Callahan not to change the game plan.

“Barret Robbins begged Coach Callahan, ‘Do not do this to me. I don’t have time to make my calls, to get my calls ready. You can’t do this to me on Friday. We haven’t practiced full speed, we can’t get this done,'” Brown said.

Brown wouldn’t correlate Robbins’ absence from the team with Callahan’s decision, however.

“I’m not saying one had anything to do with the other. All I’m saying is those are the facts of what happened Super Bowl week. So our ire wasn’t towards Barret Robbins, it was towards Bill Callahan. Because we feel as if he wouldn’t have did what he did, then Barret wouldn’t have done what he did,” Brown said.

Brown said “everybody knew Barret was unstable anyway” but the team couldn’t fathom Callahan would change plans at the last minute.

“So to put him in that situation — not that he was putting him in that situation — but for that decision to be made without consulting the players the Friday before the Super Bowl? I played 27 years of football. The coaches never changed the game plan the Friday before the game.”