Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ First Win: Ending the Streak

Every NFL team starts the season with the dream and the hope to win the Super Bowl and lift the Lombardi Trophy. And when you're a new team, you still have that hope, but you're still trying to figure out just how to be a team. And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they started in nineteen seventy six, struggled, losing twenty six games in a row. But finally on December eleventh, nineteen seventy seven, they were able to change their fortunes not only for that season, but for the team's outlook forever. Today, we're going to dive into how the Buccaneers started in this historic game on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And today's trivia question to listen out for is what is the longest losing streak all time in NFL history. The answer will be inside the episode, but if you miss it, listen to the end and where I will point it out to you. So back in the nineteen seventies, lots was changing in professional football. The AFL had officially merged with the NFL in nineteen seventy one, and they were starting to add more and more teams, and in nineteen seventy six they added two teams, one in the AFC, which was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, one in the NFC which was the Seattle Seahawks, and they started out by looking for a head coach. Not head coach was John McKay, who had won national championships with the USC and was one of the best college coaches at the time, but he loved coaching college. But what really got him was they were prepared to make him possibly the highest paid coach in the NFL. Salaries back in the nineteen seventies weren't as readily available as they are today, but estimated about this time that coaches made between one hundred and one hundred and fifty thousand, and Tampa Bay was prepared to pay John McKay fifty thousand dollars a year. So he jumped at the chance, and he struggled, you know, and introducing a new team back at that time had some challenges. They did have the Expansion Draft where you got to pick players who are fringe players on other teams and you got to pick in the draft. But it was just a little bit harder than it is now. They weren't given as much lee away as now as more recent teams has started a little bit better, But it really depends on who you get at quarterback, and Tampa Bay tried, but they tried a different way. They wanted to sell tickets. To sell tickets, they wanted someone who was known in Florida, and that was Steve Spurrier. Yes, the coach was also a great football player in Florida back when he was a player, and he played in the NFL for eleven seasons. Was a career backup mostly and they brought him in to start their first season. And they struggled that first season, going oh and fourteen, which isn't too unexpected. They are an up and coming team and they had to figure things out. And one thing they had to figure out was the difference between the college game and the pro game as there as their workout technique just wore out the team so when games came, they were so tired they couldn't even stand it. But over time this worked out in their favor and really did help them, but it wasn't a quick fix. McKay kept trying and trying and hitting his head against the wall as they kept losing and losing and losing. And they went into the following season and continued to their losing streak. They thought they had grown a little bit, but they continued to lose over and over. But the team was getting closer, having games where they held Walter Payton in check and held the Bears to ten points, but they only scored zero. They struggled on offense, was made it harder on their defense. And then in week thirteen of the nineteen seventy seventh season, they were on their way to play the New Orleans Saints, who coming into the game was only three and nine and led by legendary Chiefs coach Hank Straam and quarterbacked by a quarterback legend family in Archie Manning and Archie said that it would be embarrassing if they lost to the Buccaneers, which gave the Buccaneers even more fuel, especially their defense, which had been the best thing about the team. And that day, the Buccaneers came out strong and they forced turnovers early. First defensive back Mike Washington intercepted a pass and returned it yards for a touchdown, giving the Bucks the first lead of the game after an extra point, seven to zero, although the offense was still struggling. The defense stepped up again in the second quarter, getting a fumble which led to another field goal, giving them the score ten to zero, and then the defense held their own, giving the offense a short field where they scored their first offensive touchdown with a young one yard run from Lewis Carter. Although the Saints would come back with a long touchdown pass from Archie to Henry Childs to narrow the deficit. The Buccaneers would come back again and kick a field goal to send the game into halftime twenty to seven, which was their largest lead they'd ever had heading into a halftime, But the Saints came out in the third quarter trying to edge the gap, and they were able to get a rushing touchdown from Chuck Munsey to make the game twenty to fourteen, where they were, and they were able to get another field goal to put them up by a full touchdown heading into the fourth quarter, where they added another touchdown rush from Anthony Davis, giving them the lead thirty to fourteen, and they were able to kick up another field goal, making it thirty three to fourteen, and as the Saints were trying to come back in the final minutes, the Buccaneers intercepted an Archie Manning pass, officially ending the game and giving them their very first win as a team, ending their losing streak at twenty six losses, missing out of the record of the Chicago Cardinals, who lost twenty nine in the nineteen forties during World War Two. Following the win, they actually flew home to roughly ten thousand fans at the airport ready to welcome them home. Despite losing twenty six games in a row and not winning game for almost two years since they've been a team, the Tampa Bay community came to support them now. As a coach, I was a part of a team that did not win a game of the entire season, and when you win that first game after a long losing streak, it has an immense feeling. You don't care how you won, why you won, it doesn't matter. You just care that you won, and that monkey is off your back and now you can go and play without pressure. And they came back the next week to beat the Saint Louis Cardinals seventeen to seven, and that ended their season on a two game win streak. They were a team and they had the support now to change their fortunes around. Now. The following year they would still struggle, but they would go five and eleven this year, but the following year they would go ten and six and make their very first playoff appearance and get their very first playoff win and make it to the NFC Championship Game, where they would lose to the LA Rams. And though they would struggle to find their way after McKay left in nineteen eighty two until the late nineteen nineties, with the likes of Tony Dungee and John Gruden leading the way, they would go on to win the Super Bowl in two thousand and two and again with Tom Brady in twenty twenty. And they are no longer the laughing stock of the league, as they are a team that continuously impresses the league and has the fan base behind them ever since that first win. Thank you for listening today's episode, and if you want more bucking your content, you can check out the Cannon Fire podcast where hosts Rhett and Evan give you all the information you need to know about the Red Computer. And It's a podcast by Fans for Fans and will put a link in the description so you can check out their podcast. And if you enjoyed today's episode of Daily Sports History, please make sure you are subscribed wherever you are listening. That way, you did not miss a single episode. And we'll be back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. And did you catch the answer to today's triviuta question? What is the longest losing streak all time in NFL history? And the longest losing streak of all time was the Chicago Cardinals back between nineteen forty two to nineteen forty five, where they lost twenty nine games. This was an especially hard time as it was during World War Two and they struggled to find a win.