McCloskey quickly became dissatisfied with the financial agreement with the NFL and withdrew from the deal a month later. Hugh Culverhouse, a Jacksonville tax attorney who had failed in his attempt to buy the Los Angeles Rams, received the Tampa franchise. The new Tampa Bay franchise was named “Buccaneers” or “Bucs”, in reference to the pirates who frequented the Gulf Coast of Florida during the 17th century. The team's first home was Tampa Stadium, which had been expanded to accommodate 72,000 fans.
In 1980, the Bucs had five wins, 10 losses and a tie against the Green Bay Packers. The last game of the 1981 season was against the Detroit Lions. The winner would take the Central Division crown and the loser would miss the playoffs. The Lions hadn't lost at home all season. The Bucs soon lost, but an 84-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Doug Williams to wide receiver Kevin House, and a fumble recovery for a touchdown from David Logan sealed the victory for the Bucs and a spot in the 1981 playoffs.
The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Bucs 38-0 in the division round. Starting the 1982 season, the Bucs went 0-3 before a players' strike paralyzed the NFL for seven weeks. When the league resumed play, the Bucs won five of their next six games and qualified for the expanded list of playoffs. In the first round, the Bucs lost 30-17 to the Cowboys in Dallas.
The Bucs began the 1983 season losing their first nine games, which knocked them out of the playoffs. They finished with a 2-14 record. In 1986, the Bucs were first in the draft and chose Auburn athlete and winner of the Heisman Trophy in 1985, Vincent Edward Bo Jackson, even though Jackson had told the Bucs that if they drafted him, He wouldn't play for them. Jackson didn't like Culverhouse because the Bucs took him to Tampa for a physical exam and a visit at the team's expense during his last year in Auburn, and they made him believe that the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference had approved the trip.
No approval was requested or granted, and the trip cost Jackson his eligibility during his senior baseball season. Jackson believed that the Bucs deliberately tried to sabotage his baseball career to pursue professional soccer and be available as a first-round draft pick for the Bucs. Largely due to the Bucs' dismal performances on the field, assists were generally among the lowest in the league. Usually, the only times the games drew crowds close to their maximum capacity were when the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers came to town and brought thousands of their fans with them.
Both teams had a large following in Tampa Bay due to the large number of expatriates from the Midwest in the area. As a result, most of the Bucs' home games were blocked locally. At any given time, 32 consecutive home games between 1982 and 1986 (all or part of the five seasons) were not broadcast locally. It wasn't until the hiring of Sam Wyche that Bucs fans had reason to be optimistic.
Wyche had led the Cincinnati Bengals to play in the Super Bowl, when Cincinnati could have won had it not been for a fourth-quarter comeback designed by 49ers quarterback Joe Montana. Wyche was not immediately successful in Tampa, and even his bold statement of “five runs to two” (five wins and two losses) in his last season with the Bucs proved premature. However, Wyche is commendable for having selected three key players who would later prove to be the basis for the team's renewed success in defense: Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks and John Lynch. Despite Dungy's success in coaching Tampa Bay to win, one of the constant criticisms from the media and fans and, later, from players like Warren Sapp, was that the defense was expected to take too much responsibility for winning games.
Beyond full-back Mike Alstott and running back Warrick Dunn, who played with a double on the attacking field, and wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, the team was otherwise disappointing in attack. Despite continued criticism, Dungy remained loyal to his coaching staff, but at the end of the 1999 season, general manager Rich McKay forced Dungy to fire offensive coordinator Mike Shula. He was replaced by former Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Les Steckel in 2000, and the result was the Bucs' highest-scoring season in history, another 10-6 record and another trip to the playoffs as a wild card. Despite the transformation of the team's offensive, Steckel's training sergeant approach as a coach (he was a colonel in the Marines) wasn't right for the franchise. He was fired at the end of the season, after the Bucs lost 21—3 to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Upon his arrival in Tampa, Gruden immediately set to work, acquiring former Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Keenan McCardell, and running back Michael Pittman from the Arizona Cardinals. The Bucs needed to improve their slow attack, as the league's radical realignment led them to the new division of the NFC South, along with the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints. The offensive reorganization worked and, combined with the best defense in the league, the 2002 campaign was the Buccaneers' most successful season to date. They won the NFC South title with a 12-4 record, the best in team history, and then defeated the San Francisco 49ers in what became coach Steve Mariucci's last game with that franchise.
In a surprising surprise, the Buccaneers won their first NFC road championship against the Eagles in the last NFL game played at Veterans Stadium. Cornerback Ronde Barber crowned the victory by intercepting a pass from Donovan McNabb and returning it 92 yards for a touchdown at the end of the fourth quarter. Philadelphia fans could only watch in stunned silence. The distracted Buccaneers started the 2004 season with a 1-5 record, their worst start since Gruden arrived.
The dwindling accuracy of kicker Martin Gramatica didn't help, as the team lost many close games to achieve a 5-11 record, making the Buccaneers the first NFL team to win a Super Bowl with consecutive losing seasons. The highlights of 2004 were the great quality of play of rookie receiver Michael Clayton and the return of Doug Williams, who joined the Buccaneers' main office as an executive. The Bucs followed up with significant victories over their rivals in the NFC South division, sweeping both the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons, in addition to defeating the Panthers in a rare victory in Carolina. Despite a tough loss to the Chicago Bears and a humiliating loss to the New England Patriots, the Buccaneers finished 11-5 and won the NFC South by virtue of a playoff against the Panthers.
The Buccaneers' 30th anniversary season would end on a bitter note, as they lost 17-10 at home to the Redskins in the wild card round. A late touchdown by the Buccaneers could have tied the game, but the play was declared incomplete when a cockpit review confirmed the referee's decision. However, the lost season was more than just injuries, as most of the players who moved to the injured reserve did so after the team's 0-3 start, and the offensive blocks in the first two games in which the Buccaneers didn't score. The departure of several defensive coaches and key assistants didn't bode well for the players, who complained to some media that they couldn't hear from coaches at team meetings.
The Buccaneers started the season 0-3, with quarterback Chris Simms throwing just one touchdown against seven interceptions. In the third game of the season, a last-minute loss to the Carolina Panthers, Simms suffered a ruptured spleen and was placed in the injured reserve for the rest of the season. After their week off, the Buccaneers chose rookie quarterback Bruce Gradkowski, chosen in the sixth round of Toledo, as starters. At 7-5, the Buccaneers hadn't defeated an opponent with a winning record.
In a rainy game against the Washington Redskins, the Buccaneers won 17-16 and lost to the Detroit Lions at home. The Buccaneers defeated the would-be NFC West champion, Seattle Seahawks, 38-15 in Tampa. Despite the team record, first-round wide receiver Mike Evans had more than 1,000 receiving yards and became the youngest NFL player to record more than 200 receiving yards in a single game. Vincent Jackson had more than 1,000 receiving yards, representing Tampa Bay's first pair of 1,000-yard receivers in a season.
So technically, both a true story and a myth resulted in the Buccaneers' pirate-inspired label and mascot. And the majority now refer to them simply like the Bucs. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (known colloquially as the Bucs) are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as members of the southern division of the National Football Conference (NFC).
They joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team, along with the Seattle Seahawks, and played their first season in the western division of the American Football Conference (AFC). First, the Buccaneers franchise began in 1976 and was named after the pirates that roamed the coast. from Florida. Okay, that sounds reasonable, but there's a major problem.
Many consider the word buccaneer to be just a synonym for pirate. Buccaneer, like the phrase corsair and sea wolf, refers to a very specific group at a specific time. The first Tampa Bay Buccaneers logo was designed in 1976 by the cartoonist Lamar Sparkman. The logo shows a pirate whose face has some shades of red and yellow.
The pirate holds a knife with a white handle and red blades with his teeth and has a large hoop earring. The pirate wears a loose-fitting hat with feathers and a giant red feather on top. The pirate seems to be winking, which helps to combine the element of danger with joy. This new color combination looked quite similar to that of the Tampa Bay Bandits, the USFL team that played in the region for its three seasons, from 1983 to 1985. Despite these initial difficulties, Tampa Bay is the first post-merger expansion team to claim a division title, win a playoff game and host a conference championship, all of which it achieved in its fourth season in 1979. Dave Moore's acrobatic one-handed touchdown capture, a 27-point rally as Tampa Bay wins its debut at Raymond James Stadium, 27-15. They were moved to NFC Central, while the other 1976 expansion team, the Seattle Seahawks, changed conference with Tampa Bay and joined the AFC West.
The Williams selection marks the fourth time in team history that Tampa Bay has selected a runner in the first round and the first time since 1997 (Warrick Dunn, 12th overall). Petersburg businessmen argued that he emphasized Tampa to the detriment of other Bay Area cities, until NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle himself met with them to encourage them to support them. With 16 points, Tampa Bay sets a club record for points in a season with 336, eclipsing the previous record of 335 points in 1984. Talib becomes the best cornerback ever selected by Tampa Bay and the second defensive back the Buccaneers have drafted in the first round. The Beloit College buccaneer is the mirror image of the Tampa Bay buccaneer, with the cream colors replaced by the colors of the Beloit school. In Super Bowl XXXVII, where Tampa Bay was the designated local team, they chose to wear their red home jerseys.
Louis, the win over Cincinnati gives Tampa Bay three consecutive road wins for the first time in franchise history. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' fortunes begin to change after Tony Dungy, the then coach, builds one of the best defensive teams in the NFL. Tampa Bay could win five All-Pro selections from the AP's first team in the first 23 seasons of the franchise's existence. In Simpson's last home game in San Francisco, Tampa Bay lost its third consecutive attempt to claim a division title against a 49ers team, which came with a 1-13 record.
The spectacular and innovative facility will be built in the Tampa Bay Center shopping mall, across from Raymond James Stadium. So I'm not a big fan of soccer, but I did notice when Tom Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that I'll politely call not It is rated A.
