About Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League as a member of the National Football Conference South division. They joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team, along with the Seattle Seahawks, and played its first season in the American Football Conference West division.
Prior to the 1977 season, Tampa Bay switched conferences and divisions with Seattle, becoming a member of the NFC Central division. The Seahawks eventually rejoined the NFC in 2002, leaving the Buccaneers as the only NFL team not to play in their original conference. As a result of the league's realignment prior to the 2002 season, the Buccaneers joined three former NFC West teams to form the NFC South. The team is owned by the Glazer family and plays its home games at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.
The Buccaneers have won two Super Bowl championships and, along with the Baltimore Ravens, are the only two NFL franchises that are undefeated in multiple Super Bowl appearances. They were regarded as a perennial losing franchise for most of their first two decades due to suffering 26 consecutive losses in their first two seasons and 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1983 to 1996—the most in NFL history—contributing to their league-worst overall winning percentage of .406.
Despite these early struggles, Tampa Bay is the first post-merger expansion team to clinch a division title, win a playoff game, and host a conference championship, all of which they accomplished by their fourth season in 1979. The team's image improved by the time of their first championship in 2002, also the first for any of the six organizations built after the merger, but they would not win another playoff game until their second Super Bowl championship season in 2020.
The Buccaneers joined the NFL as members of the AFC West in 1976. The following year, they were moved to the NFC Central, while the other 1976 expansion team, the Seattle Seahawks, switched conferences with Tampa Bay and joined the AFC West. This realignment was dictated by the league as part of the 1976 expansion plan, so that both teams could play each other twice and every other NFL franchise once during their first two seasons. Instead of a traditional schedule of playing each division opponent twice, the Buccaneers played every conference team once, plus the Seahawks.
Tampa Bay went 0–14 in their first season. They were outscored by an average of almost 21 points per game. Only three games ended with the Buccaneers within one possession. Until the Detroit Lions in 2008, the 1976 Bucs were the only Super Bowl-era team to go winless in a whole season. Their losing streak caused them to become the butt of late-night television comedians' jokes. Tampa Bay did not win their first game until the 13th week of their second season, starting with a record of 0–26 . The Saints' head coach, Hank Stram, was fired after losing to the Buccaneers. Their first win came on December 11, 1977, on the road against the New Orleans Saints in Week 13. Tampa Bay needed one more week to get their second victory, a home win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1977 season finale. The Cardinals also fired their coach, Don Coryell, shortly afterward.
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