Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NFL (American football) franchise that has traditionally been one of the weaker teams in the league. They also have had a freaky knack for giving up on quarterbacks who eventually win Super Bowls elsewhere and for losing in cold weather.

Tampa Bay was granted an NFL franchise in 1974. The name "Buccaneers" was chosen by a committee from around 400 name submissions. Their first season of play was 1976. The Bucs proceeded to lose a league-record 26 straight games (before finally winning in New Orleans in December 1977).

That started a meteoric rise, which led the Bucs into the 1979 NFC Championship Game, in just their first 4th season in the league. However, they lost 9-0 to the Los Angeles Rams. The Buccaneers also made the playoffs after the 1981 and 1982 seasons. Much of their early success was symbolized by defensive end Lee Roy Selmon, who was their first ever draft pick in 1976. Selmon had a Hall of Fame career, and is still the only Buccaneers player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

However, things went downhill after 1982, and the Bucs would go another 15 years before making the postseason again.

Symbolic of the Bucs' problems, with the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft in 1986 they chose Bo Jackson. However, the Bucs could not agree to terms with Bo and he played baseball instead. A year later, he re-entered the draft and was taken by the Los Angeles Raiders, where he played for several seasons. In effect, the Bucs ended up wasting the #1 overall pick in the 1986 draft.

Tampa Bay has developed an uncanny knack for dealing away quarterbacks who would win Super Bowls for other teams. In the '80s, the Bucs gave up on Doug Williams (who won a Super Bowl with the Washington Redskins) and Steve Young (who won with the San Francisco 49ers). More recently, the Bucs did not keep Trent Dilfer, who went to the Baltimore Ravens and won a Super Bowl in January 2001.

In recent years, Tampa has had success, with head coach Tony Dungy building one of the best defenses in the league around Warren Sapp. The Bucs made the playoffs in 1997, for the first time in 15 years. After the 1999 season, they went to the NFC Championship game, narrowly falling to the St. Louis Rams 11-6. Tampa also made the playoffs in 2000.

Another mysterious fact about the Bucs is that they can't seem to win in cold weather. As of the time of this writeup, they are 0-20 all-time when the gametime temperature is below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (approx. 5 celsius).

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers play in the NFC Central and their home field is Raymond James Stadium.

Back in the days of the Creamsicle-colored uniforms, when the Bucs played at The Big Sombrero, they played these two songs before the games:

Hey, hey, Tampa Bay, the Bucs know how to shine
Hey, hey, Tampa Bay, the Bucs know how to shine
If we're in trouble, that's okay, 'cause we can pull it out
Because we know we're on the top
When we stand up, stand up and shout
Hey, hey, Tampa Bay, the Bucs know how to shine
Hey, hey, Tampa Bay, the Bucs know how to shine
Give a cheer for the Buccaneers (Go Bucs)
Give a cheer for the Buccaneers (Go Bucs)
(Repeat and fade)

Hey, hey, hey, we're the Buccaneers
Ho, ho, ho, we're the Buccaneers
Offense, defense, now we're here to say
Make the Packers walk the plank
Throw 'em in Tampa Bay, hey

The second song came in versions for every other NFL team, although I don't think it survived long enough for them to make versions for the Jaguars or the Panthers, let alone the Titans. While they had the broadcasting rights for the Bucs, Top 40 radio station WRBQ also played these songs during the football season as a regular part of their Friday afternoons at 5:00 block, along with "Take This Job and Shove It" and other similar songs.

During the game, however, the songs were a little different:

It's a good time for the great taste
It's a good time for the great taste
It's a good time for the great taste…

Coke is it
The biggest taste you've ever found
Coke is it
The one that never lets you down…

At Eastern, we earn our wings every day

Tampa Stadium didn't have a permanent Jumbotron instant replay screen until Super Bowl XXV in 1991, so the advertisements played in the stadium during TV timeouts consisted of a commercial jingle over the PA system while the logo bounced around on the dot matrix scoreboard in the north end zone. Nevertheless, that was still more memorable than the highly mediocre teams the Bucs were putting on the field in the mid-1980s. I can't remember anything Steve DeBerg did with the Bucs, and all I remember of Vinny Testaverde's Bucs career is approximately 600 interceptions, but I can vividly recall that the Hurricane Restaurant's musical selection was Blondie's "The Tide Is High."

I also remember hearing a lot of fourth quarters on the radio on the drive home, because the Bucs were way behind and my father wanted to beat the traffic. There were never any spectacular comebacks.

Anyway, in the recent years of the red and pewter uniforms, at Raymond James Stadium, the Bucs have taken to playing the song from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World ("Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)"), which makes so much sense, if it were any other team, they would have paid Disney the royalties and started playing it a long time ago.