FIRE THE CANN NS
50 YEARS OF TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS FOOTBALL WITH PUBLISHING SUPPORT FROM
ABOUT THE BOOK
The exhilaration of that first franchise victory after an 0-26 start. Drafts and hirings that challenged societal norms. The swallowed pride while enduring the Yuccaneer years. The Hall of Famers who first hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. That string of quarterbacks who are best forgotten. And one GOAT who will be remembered for eternity. For 50 years, the Buccaneers have thrilled fans throughout Tampa Bay and beyond. And we have been there to document every single season. Crack open “FIRE THE CANNONS: 50 Years of Tampa Bay Buccaneers Football” and join us for this romp through the first five decades.
FRONT COVER From left: Tom Brady, Doug Williams, Lee Roy Selmon, Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp
BACK COVER Clockwise from top left: Jon Gruden, Ronde Barber, Tony Dungy, Jimmie Giles, John Lynch
Copyright © 2025 by Tampa Bay Times • All Rights Reserved • ISBN: 978-1-59725-171-5
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner or the publisher. Published by Pediment Publishing, a division of The Pediment Group, Inc. • www.pediment.com • Printed in Canada
This is an unofficial account of Buccaneers history by the Tampa Bay Times and is not endorsed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or the NFL.
The Weeknd performs during halftime of Super Bowl 55 at Raymond James Stadium. MARTHA ASENCIO-RHINE / TAMPA BAY TIMES
FOREWORD
BY RICH MCKAY | FORMER TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS GENERAL MANAGER
MY DAD, JOHN MCKAY, MOVED OUR FAMILY FROM Los Angeles to Tampa in the spring of 1976, leaving behind a college coaching career that included guiding the University of Southern California to four national championships. He didn’t disclose to us what level of challenges he was going to face in beginning an expansion team from scratch under the pre-free agency rules of the NFL.
The Buccaneers franchise was launched that spring with:
• Orange uniforms.
• A swashbuckling Pirate as a logo.
• A region, not a city, as its designated team moniker.
• An unparalleled excitement that was quickly followed by the
realization that the road wasn’t going to be without speed bumps — “26” to be exact!
A 0-26 beginning is not what you would draw up as a great way to launch an expansion startup, but it was our path, and the fans who came out the other end of that incredibly challenging time were the better for it, I think.
For those who don’t understand and/or appreciate the connection the franchise created with the community, I would ask you to look at the stories and photos in this book that relate to the team’s first win in New Orleans and the greeting they received upon returning that night — it was AMAZING! The team was coming home 1-12 in the 1977 season, and you certainly would have thought it was a playoff and/or Super Bowl win reception.
Thank you for being a fan of the franchise. It’s incredible for me to see Raymond James Stadium on a Sunday. Looking up and remembering all the Ring of Honor members, the role each played in the team’s most memorable moments, and,
notably, remembering the fans’ reactions to those moments recounted in this book.
When you think of the early days, don’t forget to mention Lee Roy Selmon, a class act in every way and a fantastic football player. Remember “Worst to First” and the incredible season that was 1979.
For my time working at the franchise (19922003), no one person did more to change the culture and perception of the franchise than Tony Dungy. That said, signing Hardy Nickerson, and the franchise drafting John Lynch, Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks and many others helped Tony build a team that reinvigorated our franchise, which had lost its way.
When we stood on the podium in San Diego to accept the franchise’s first Super Bowl trophy, my mind went to all the players, coaches, staff and fans who had given so much for us to achieve the ultimate prize.
What the franchise did in acquiring quarterback Tom Brady in 2020, building a team around
OPPOSITE: Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden and players celebrate after receiver Keenan McCardell’s touchdown at the end of the second quarter during Super Bowl 37 on Jan. 26, 2003. JIM DAMASKE / ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
him and winning another Super Bowl is more impressive.
I was privileged to be hired by Hugh Culverhouse in 1992 and again privileged to be retained by Malcolm Glazer in 1995 when he and his family purchased the team. Players matter, coaches matter, but ownership matters the most in the world of sports, and the Glazer family has been great stewards of the franchise.
Enjoy the ride this book will provide — it wasn’t always the easiest or perfectly planned, but it was done with the fan base and a community that always supported the team at the highest level.
RIGHT: Quarterback Tom Brady is no stranger to lifting the Lombardi Trophy, but his Super Bowl 55 victory comes with the Bucs, not the Patriots. The GOAT guides Tampa Bay past the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-9, on Feb. 7, 2021. DIRK SHADD / TAMPA BAY TIMES
OPPOSITE: Bucs great Lee Roy Selmon addresses fans as his name is added to the franchise’s Ring of Honor during a Nov. 9, 2009, game against the Green Bay Packers at Raymond James Stadium. DIRK SHADD / ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
ERA 1: 1974–1977
A FRANCHISE IS BORN
OPPOSITE: In the early days, the Bucs played at Tampa Stadium, which was enlarged to 72,000 seats to accommodate an
NFL team.
FRED VICTORIN / ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
TIMELINE 1974–1977
APRIL 24, 1974
Tampa is awarded the NFL’s 27th franchise.
DEC. 5, 1974
Hugh Culverhouse, a Jacksonville attorney and real estate investor, purchases the franchise for $16 million.
APRIL 21, 1975
The Tampa Sports Authority unanimously approves a 30-year lease agreement with Bucs officials for Tampa Stadium, which is enlarged to 72,000 seats.
OCT. 30, 1974
Tom McCloskey, a Philadelphia construction businessman, is granted the franchise but soon backs off accepting ownership.
FEB. 15, 1975
It is announced the Tampa Bay franchise will be called the Buccaneers (the choice of a local contest to name the team).
OCT. 31, 1975
John McKay, winner of four national titles at the University of Southern California, is named the first Bucs coach.
JULY 31, 1976
The Bucs fall to the Los Angeles Rams, 26-3, at the Los Angeles Coliseum in their first exhibition game. Pete Rajecki provides the franchise’s first points (preseason or regular season) with an 18-yard field goal.
APRIL 8, 1976
Oklahoma defensive end Lee Roy Selmon is selected by the Bucs with the No. 1 overall pick of the NFL draft.
SEPT. 12, 1976
Tampa Bay falls, 20-0, at Houston in its first regular-season game. One week later, the San Diego Chargers spoil the Bucs’ home opener with a 23-0 romp.
AUG. 14, 1976
The Bucs defeat the Atlanta Falcons, 17-3, in an exhibition game at Jacksonville’s Gator Bowl.
DEC. 18, 1977
Tampa Bay makes it two in a row with its first home victory, 17-7, against the St. Louis Cardinals.
DEC. 11, 1977
After 26 consecutive losses, the Bucs win their first regular-season game, 33-14, against the New Orleans Saints at the Louisiana Superdome.
ERA 1: 1974-1977
GROWING PAINS OF A FLEDGLING FRANCHISE
BY JOEY KNIGHT | TIMES STAFF WRITER
THE PRIMITIVE TEAM PLANE CRUISED IN THE December darkness roughly 40,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, its fuselage a bosom of blissfulness.
Alcohol and dancing segued to cavorting and crudeness. Had the passengers been so indulged, the flight might not have made a beeline from New Orleans to Tampa, but would have circled the Peninsula, maybe even Peru.
Anything to keep this party going.
“I think there were a few beers drank,” recalled Mark Cotney, one
of the prominent passengers, with a chuckle.
“It was everything that you could ever imagine. You couldn’t keep people in their seats; everybody was up just celebrating and remembering what it feels like to win again.”
That feeling had eluded this prideful assemblage of players, coaches, staffers and executives for nearly two full autumns. For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, formally approved as what was then the NFL’s 27th franchise in April 1974, the pangs had arrived after
birth: 26 consecutive losses — including 11 shutouts — to begin their existence.
But in the next-to-last game of its second season, the national punchline finally punched back. Buoyed by a defense that scored three touchdowns and forced seven turnovers, the Bucs embarrassed the Saints, 33-14, in the Louisiana Superdome.
Next stop: nirvana.
“You would’ve thought we’d won the Super Bowl,” second-year tailback Jimmy DuBose said.
Yet for all the firsthand
accounts of the celebration — in the skies and on the streets — one can’t fully appreciate it without its prologue, one steeped in futility, ineptitude and derision.
Next man up? Not in the early days
Bedecked in creamsicle-colored uniforms with a winking-pirate logo on their helmets, the inaugural Bucs of 1976 and 1977 couldn’t get out of their own way. While the defense was serviceable, the offense was slapstick, regressing into Johnny Carson joke material.
OPPOSITE: Receiver Morris Owens (85) streaks past defenders en route to a 61-yard touchdown as the Bucs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 17-7, on Dec. 18, 1977. ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
“We were terrible at the time,” inside linebacker Richard “Batman” Wood said.
The franchise’s first touchdown didn’t arrive until Game 4, and the defense scored it. The offense managed only 14 touchdowns all year. By season’s end, the Bucs had amassed nearly as many penalties (109) as points (125).
Offensively, Year 2 was even worse. The 1977 Bucs totaled only 103 points and were held to seven or fewer in 10 of their 14 contests. The first offensive touchdown at home didn’t arrive until the season finale.
“I may have set some kind of record, because I played in all 14 of those losses (in 1976),” said Steve Spurrier, the Hall of Fame college coach who became the first starting quarterback in franchise history.
“Parnie (Parnell Dickinson) started against Miami and got knocked out in the second quarter some time, and then (Terry) Hanratty started up at Pittsburgh (a 42-0 loss) and Coach (John) McKay said, ‘Can you finish this thing up in the second half?’ I said, ‘Sure, let me go tape my knee up.’
“But I don’t know how many quarterbacks have ever played every losing game on a team. They usually put the next guy in.”
For this patchwork roster, next guys were a luxury.
NFL free agency in its current form wouldn’t arrive for nearly another two decades. In addition to the annual college draft, the rosters of the Bucs and Seahawks — the other expansion team in 1976 — were assembled via an expansion draft, in which existing teams were allowed to protect 29 players from the two new teams, who then could choose from among those unprotected.
“We had to take what the other teams gave us,” DuBose said.
That assemblage included Cotney, a strong safety from tiny Cameron University in southern Oklahoma who had been left unprotected by the Houston Oilers, who drafted him in the seventh round in 1975.
“It’s tough, man,” Cotney
RIGHT: Lee Roy Selmon, who spent his entire NFL career in Tampa Bay, shakes hands with Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse after the defensive end was drafted No. 1 overall on April 8, 1976. ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
OPPOSITE: The Bucs board the team plane for their first-ever road trip on July 30, 1976, off to Los Angeles for an exhibition game against the Rams. ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
RIGHT: Running back Louis Carter (32) attempts to elude the Saints’ Joe Campbell (73) during the Bucs’ first franchise victory, 33-14, at New Orleans on Dec. 11, 1977. BILL SERNE / TAMPA TRIBUNE
recalled from the den of his Lutz, Florida, home. “I think realistically that, even though we didn’t actually think or talk about it, we probably knew that the chances of us winning a game weren’t very high.”
That didn’t stop them from trying — perhaps too hard.
“Sometimes we would go until late in the evening in training camp,” Wood said.
McKay, a World War II veteran who had led the University of Southern California to four national titles on a power run philosophy,
sometimes held three practices a day in the preseason, which then included six exhibition games.
Cotney recalls one preseason game in which the first-team defense, pulled after one half, was summoned again when McKay became displeased with the effort of the backups.
“There was a guy, I can’t remember who it was, we played a football game and he came up to me after the game and he goes, ‘I can honestly tell that you guys’ legs are not underneath you,’ ” Cotney recalled.
“We did three-a-days. Not a bunch of them, but we (also) did two-a-days, and hitting in every practice was normal. We were literally not only a bad team, but we were a beat-up team.”
Nowhere to go but up
Gradually, the humiliation reached historic proportions. When the 1976 season ended with a 3114 home loss to the New England Patriots, the Bucs became the first NFL team to play an entire 14-game season without winning or tying a
single game. Then it got worse.
In their first four games of 1977, the Bucs totaled nearly as many turnovers (11) as points (13). Three starting quarterbacks (Spurrier had been waived that April) combined to sustain 48 sacks. Only a fledgling defense that ranked 12th in the league in points allowed per game (15.9) kept the team quasi-competitive.
Its initial building block, AllAmerica defensive end Lee Roy Selmon of Oklahoma, had been the franchise’s first draft pick. His
brother Dewey, a Sooners consensus All-American defensive lineman, had been picked in the second round.
Wood, a three-time All-American for McKay at Southern Cal, had been acquired via trade from the Jets. Tackle Dave Pear, who would become the franchise’s first Pro Bowler, had been picked from the Colts in the expansion draft.
“We weren’t bad,” recalled Wood. “I mean, one game we played over 100 snaps; I’ll never forget it. But getting first downs, keeping the
ball, running it all up and down the field just did not happen.”
A microcosm of the misery: Game 12 against the Bears. On a mild December afternoon at Tampa Stadium, the Bucs held Walter Payton and the Bears scoreless for three quarters, only to surrender 10 fourth-quarter points in a 10-0 defeat. Payton eclipsed 100 yards for the day on his 33rd and final carry. Tampa Bay finished with more penalty yards (50) than passing yards (36).
Joey Johnston, a former longtime
sports reporter for the Tampa Tribune and Tampa Bay Times, spent his 18th birthday among the Tampa Stadium audience of 48,948 that day.
“I remember being disgusted,” Johnston said. “That was like, the complete character of the team — incredible defense, offense beyond bad.”
Fittingly, it was the defense that quashed the ridicule. The following Sunday, Wood was among three defensive players who scored touchdowns against the Saints (his on
LEFT: Defensive end Lee Roy Selmon (63) celebrates the Bucs’ first win with offensive guard Jeff Winans (62).
a 10-yard return of a tipped Bobby Scott pass), who committed seven turnovers in that 33-14 Bucs romp. That jubilant plane ride served only as a prelude to the reception awaiting the team upon its return to Tampa that night.
Nothing beats that first taste of victory
A throng greeted the team at Tampa International Airport, then migrated to the old One Buc Place — located in the shadow of the airport off Westshore Boulevard — to
TAMPA TRIBUNE
greet the team buses as they arrived at the franchise headquarters.
Horns blared from parked cars that lined Westshore and Boy Scout Road (currently occupied by International Plaza). Upon deboarding, players and coaches were mobbed by fans who simply wanted to touch them. Published reports estimated the crowd at 8,000.
“I still remember being in the
crowd when the bus arrived, and McKay got up and he tried to speak,” said Johnston, who arrived at the scene with two buddies. “I don’t know if anyone could hear him. He had like, a remnant of a Saints jersey that he held up like a warrior … and the crowd screamed. It was just this mad scene. What an incredible moment.”
The sequel arrived the following
Sunday. In the season finale against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Bucs scored their only two offensive touchdowns at home — one of them a Gary Huff 61-yard scoring pass to Morris Owens — in a 17-7 triumph. The defense allowed nearly 300 yards, but forced four more turnovers. Afterward, fans stormed the field, dislodging the goal posts.
“Trying to get that first win, trying
OPPOSITE: The Bucs’ first victory was a long time coming (the team had lost 26 straight games) and fans turn out in droves to celebrate the milestone. ERIC MENCHER / TAMPA TRIBUNE
ABOVE: Bang a drum and get the spray paint for the pickup. Fans go all out in 1977 to celebrate the Bucs’ inaugural win. BRITT LAUGHLIN / TAMPA TRIBUNE