BillyCarpenter1

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
1976-77


No professional football team started out as miserably as the Tampa Bay Bucs. They lost their first 26 regular season games, 11 by shutout.

The Bucs were headed in the wrong direction even before the kickoff of their NFL debut. After completing their pre-game warmups in the Houston Astrodome, the team followed their coach, John McKay, off the field and into the concrete innards of the stadium. And there they promptly got lost.

Forty-five players, eight coaches, and assorted equipment men, trainers, and doctors wandered around befuddled, searching futilely for the locker room. Finally, a security guard found them and guided them back to their locker room. But by then, the Bucs had just a few minutes to get ready and return to the field for the start of the game.

As it turns out, the offense never did find the end zone and mustered only a paltry total of 108 yards in a 20-0 loss to the Houston Oilers.

The next week, the offense produced only 13 yards through the air. "The running backs ran like they were mud fences," complained McKay. Thirty-nine times in the game, Tampa Bay either failed to move the football or was thrown for a loss.

Not until the fourth game did the Bucs score their first touchdown— and it was pulled off by the defense on a 44-yard fumble recovery. Most of the Bucs' offensive punch was supplied by cornerback Mike Washington, who threw a fist and was ejected from the game. Afterward, McKay said, "We will be back, maybe not in this century, but we will be back."

Following their eighth straight loss, 28-19 to Kansas City, McKay lost his patience and temper. He thundered, "They were absolutely horrible and that's the nicest thing I can say about them."

The next week, Tampa Bay raised the hopes of its fans when the team tied Denver 10-10 in the third quarter. But the joy was short-lived. The Bucs lost, 48-13. McKay's frustration reached a peak; he refused to shake Denver coach John Ralston's hand after the game. Instead, McKay accused Ralston of running up the score, and hurled a bunch of obscenities at the Bronco coach. Meanwhile, Tampa's starting tight end Bob Moore summed up the feeling of the losing team, "Sometimes I feel as though I were on the aft deck of the Lusitania."

The following week, the New York Jets sacked Buc quarterbacks four times and took advantage of six turnovers to record their first shutout in thirteen years, 34-0.

In their final game of the year, a 31-14 clobbering by the New England Patriots, the Bucs became the only expansion team in NFL history to lose all the games in their first season. "I'll probably take a little time off," said a weary McKay, "and go hide someplace."

The Bucs started the second year off just like the first, scoring only one touchdown in the first 4 games. They lost for the second straight year to their expansion brothers, the Seattle Seahawks, this time 30-23, on 4 interceptions and 2 fumbles. In a game in which the Bucs' offense scored its most points ever, the defense decided to take the day off.

The next week, the Bucs lost to Green Bay, 13 to terrible. Said the St. Petersburg Times: "Continuing their unrelenting vendetta against victory, the Tampa Bay Bucs pulled out all the stops to ward off an impending win and kept their losing streak intact. The Bucs used timely penalties, fumbles, mental lapses and an absolutely pointless display of offensive football to further secure their position at the bottom of the NFL barrel."

They played rookies who were so inexperienced that some of them hadn't even lettered. Fans began hoping for 0-for-forever and wore T-shirts that read, "Go for 0." They cheered the visiting teams. They had little reason to cheer the Bucs. But on occasion they would applaud when the team did something spectacular—like making a particularly smooth entry onto the field.