Original subtitles

Good evening.

Thanks for joining us tonight and what a day in "Champa" Bay,

an epic celebration for the team here at home

in the place they call home.

A Super Bowl parade, Florida style.

Woo! Yes, baby!

Yo!

It's crazy out here! Do you see this?

This is for all of us.

I could not believe how many boats there were.

It was unbelievable.

I mean, it could have been the U.S. Navy

with the amount of boats that were in that parade.

An epic moment for fans.

This is one they've waited for,

wished for and wanted for years

and today, a dream came true.

Everybody cheering for you,

the music was going,

we're waving to people.

We were having so much fun.

- Buc station. - Buc station.

Who's house is that, bro? Our house, boys.

I have the trophy.

All the tight ends were on one boat

and they kept going, hey, throw the trophy.

And after probably eight shots of tequila,

I was like, that seems like a good idea.

You ready?

I was getting ready to cock it back, one, two,

we're kind of counting down

and at the last second I hear my daughter go...

Dad, no!

No!

Fo-foom, fo-foom, fo-foom...

What the fuck was I thinking?

Brian Ford, take one, mark.

All right.

The birth of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

A lot of people don't realize what went into it.

Back in the day, in the 60s and 70s,

Tampa had about 200,000 people, it was a small port city.

When I first became mayor,

there's one or two buildings downtown Tampa,

very family-oriented.

It wasn't big enough for the NFL, but Florida was booming.

So in the early '60s,

the Tampa Sports Authority formed

with a mission to bring pro sports to Tampa.

They built a stadium that held 47,000 people

at a cost of about four and a half million dollars.

It wasn't too big a decision at the time

because we felt that we were really

the top contender for an NFL team.

A local civic leader by the name of Bill Markham,

he knew that the stadium might be the launching pad

to something bigger.

Right then is when we started to go after

an NFL franchise for Tampa.

The leaders of the Tampa Sports Authority

turned to Leonard and George Levy to sell that dream.

Leonard Levy, he showed the NFL,

This was a city bigger than just Tampa, Florida.

Tampa, St. Petersburg isn't one city,

it's two big cities and many other growing cities.

When the league looked at this market for what it was,

Hillsborough County, Pasco County,

Pinellas County, it not only rivaled,

but it exceeded some of the current cities

that hosted NFL teams.

We got 300,000 great citizens in the city of Tampa.

We got 300,000 in the county.

We got our neighbors across the way.

It did the trick.

They awarded the city of Tampa the 27th franchise.

Ultimately tax attorney and Jacksonville, Florida

resident Hugh Culverhouse agreed to buy the team

for $16 million.

Okay. All right.

Before you go back inside, I think Mr. Culverhouse

wants to say something.

I'd like to take the opportunity at this dedication

to rededicate the efforts of the Buccaneers

to proving to the world that Tampa Bay Area

will have the greatest football team

in the history of the NFL.

At this time, I would like for you to meet

the staff of the team that we've gotten together so far.

Ron Wolf.

He was head of the Oakland Raiders personnel for 13 years.

Ron is our number one man.

It was a very interesting proposition

to put together the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

and to do how I wanted to do it from a personnel standpoint.

The first year John McKay came in

and he was the football coach.

The hire of John McKay was obvious to anyone.

At USC, he's a four-time

national championship winning coach.

He was the Nick Saban of his time easily.

Coach McKay, if you can have a philosophy

of building an expansion team in the National Football League,

what would you say yours is?

Well, Tim, I believe basically you build it

from the ground up and you go very slowly

and try to get as many quality players as you can.

There were two drafts back in 1976.

One draft was the regular college draft

and then one draft was the expansion draft,

which included the players from National Football League teams.

Each team at the National Football League

promised they would give us three players

off of their roster.

So I'm saying, my God, we're going to get a pretty good team.

And all of a sudden, I see these guys getting out of the bus.

Yeah, I feel old.

They were either blind, crippled, or crazy.

I don't really understand why I was put on the list

to come down here, but I did.

I said, where are these great players?

Harold, was it a disappointment for you to be picked up

by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?

Yeah, I guess you could say somewhat.

I mean, it was a shock to see the players

that they were allocated at that time.

The Miami Dolphins put a guy on the list

who was actually going to medical school.

He was leaving the NFL forever

and they put him on the list.

There were no rules.

They spent a lot of money. They improved stadiums.

They created this environment and this excitement.

And then they were given absolutely no chance to win.

Any time you take an expansion franchise

against teams that have been in the league 30, 40, 50 years,

they're really not doing any favor.

So the only way to acquire veterans

was to use your draft capital and trade for veteran players.

I don't think I'm going to be on the expansion list

from what I've heard out in San Francisco,

but the possibility of a trade is very likely.

I was going into my 10th year,

mostly as a backup quarterback.

The 49ers called me and said,

we've traded you to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Steve Spurrier was appealing

to the organization because he was a Heisman Trophy winner

from the University of Florida.

I got a chance to go back to Florida.

I was fired up about it.

You traded for a veteran quarterback

towards the end of his career.

But that's what you do in your expansion year.

You use guys who are placeholders for the future.

Then you had the college draft.

I want to go offensively or defensively.

Hugh Culverhouse won the coin flip,

so we had the first pick, thank God.

And the first pick was so obvious.

Okay, let's put his name in.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers select...

The first choice in the first round

by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Lee Roy Selman, defensive end, Oklahoma.

Right there is Lee Roy Selman.

Under pressure from Lee Roy.

Look out, there he goes.

All American, and the Outland trophy winner.

Look this way, Lee Roy.

That's good. How about a nice smile?

What about going with a brand new team

that's never played before, all new players?

How do you feel about that?

I'll be starting out maybe with some guys

who will be learning right along with me and everything.

And if we do start out kind of slow,

then maybe later build something good,

it'd be kind of a good feeling to be a part

of something like that.

That's a masterpiece.

In one's lifetime, you very seldom get

to pick a player of that caliber.

And here he was and he fell right in our laps.

In the whole family is six brothers and three girls, yeah.

When Lee Roy was the first player picked,

we were ecstatic in Norman.

But prior to that,

we were told that I was going to be drafted

by the Seattle Seahawks, another expansion team.

Because of that, we went out and we bought two of everything.

We bought two TVs, we doubled up the albums,

we bought more furniture,

saying that I was going to head to the West Coast,

he to Florida.

I always sat there to the whole end of the day

wondering where I was going to be drafted at.

And the phone rings.

And it wasn't from a GM. It wasn't from an owner.

It was from Lee Roy.

And Lee Roy said, "Hey, dude...

What do you think about coming to Tampa with me?"

And I was ecstatic about it.

I just fell over and I said, "Heck fire, yeah,

let's go to Tampa."

Think of the Selmon brothers.

Dewey hits them and Lee Roy calls the next of kin.

Well, of course, they're the two first defensive players we picked.

So Lee Roy and Dewey mean a lot to us.

I'm glad that...

My dad began to acquire some players that he trusted.

That included players like Richard "Batman" Wood,

a USC linebacker.

I'm very reckless in where I play football.

The way I was brought up in the street,

you play football on the pavement.

And he's hauled down by the All-American linebacker,

Richard Wood, number 80.

Wood was a two-time All-American and a heck of a player.

So I said, sure, I'm going to make that trade.

Tampa Bay traded seventh round draft pick.

I said seventh round?

Hmm.

But hey, what did I care? I'm coming to Tampa.

Piece by piece, the defense was coming together.

Where you at?

If that was OJ Simpson or

a great running back in the NFL, come here.

Get a base set... and slam!

Come on, Timmy, take your turn.

He won't hurt.

When John McKay had come to Tampa,

he had a five-year plan and said,

we will go to the playoffs in five years.

And if not, I'll quit.

I was not surprised because I knew

that Coach McKay would get the talent in here

sooner than later is much better.

Let's go. Let's go. Hit!

We were bringing in people left and right to try them out.

Right next door, maybe 30 steps was a motel,

and that's where we put our players up.

We could bring them in,

try them out, fly them out.

Four, five, six guys a day.

It was like a revolving door.

One of the coaches came in on a Saturday

when no one was there,

and they tried out the Coca-Cola delivery man.

McKay would bring in anyone.

It bothers me that they have picked us

to be the worst team in football

because what they're doing now is challenging your

physical and your mental capacity

and my ability to coach.

Now, this hurts me.

Second worst team, I could stand it,

but not the worst team.

The National Football League

advertises that on any given Sunday,

any team can beat any other.

Of course, the slogan came before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Houston Oilers are going to open 1976

with a convincing win over Tampa Bay.

The offense was just hapless right out of the gates.

I think they punted 20 times in the first two games alone.

Once they started losing, it was easy.

They didn't know how to win.

You will see a much better team Sunday.

I don't know whether you will see a winning team,

but it will be a much better team.

Yeah, let's play everybody.

Hell, we're not proving one thing here.

We're proving we can't play.

Over the shock of really being beaten so often.

Coach McKay had the team in the squad room,

and he said, fellas,

we're losing that battle at the line of scrimmage.

If you lose up front, you're going to lose the game.

One of our linemen in the back, Howard Fest,

was sound asleep,

like he usually was during the team meetings.

Coach McKay saw him and yelled out,

Fest, where our most football games lost?

He said, right here with the Buccaneers, coach.

It'll be all right.

We've got some guys over here that want to tackle. That's all.

They won't be here long.

With this defeat, the Buccaneers became the first team

in NFL history to finish 0 and 14.

No one expected 0 and 14.

Most people expected between one and three wins.

That's what franchises did in the first year.

But the owner, Hugh Culverhouse,

his concern was always the bottom line

and not the goal line.

That was well known to everyone.

You know, he was tight with the purse strings.

I think probably the best word to use was cheap.

One Buc Place was a rectangular white stucco box.

And Hugh Culverhouse actually didn't pay for it.

He traded some sort of contract

with the owner of an airport hotel

at Tampa International Airport.

I think the uniqueness of One Buc that people didn't realize

when they built it is it literally

is right next to the runways.

It is noisy.

Roll one, Coach McKay.

The facility was awful small for an NFL franchise.

The laundry room was in the equipment room.

I had a desk in there.

We had 91 lockers.

We got 106 players, so some players had to double up.

We had visiting coaches go,

how do you guys operate out of here?

We just shrugged our shoulders.

16 million dollar franchise, this is what we've got.

His ability to squeeze the cost of operations was legendary.

Mr. Culverhouse rented a plane called McCulloch Airlines.

That plane pulled up and we just said,

you've got to be kidding me.

We're getting on this plane and traveling across the country?

I guess they offer Mr. Culverhouse

a good deal to fly us around.

It was one that we all kind of had questions about.

We didn't think we were going to make it.

We were coming to the end of the runway.

Our front wheels weren't up yet.

And that chain-linked fence was coming closer and closer.

And people in the back of the plane were screaming,

we ain't going to make it! We're not going to make it!

Finally, we made it.

But I'm telling you, there were six players

that refused to get back on that plane

and flew back to Tampa on their own ticket.

They were not going to get back on that plane.

After a winless first season,

Tampa Bay is looking to bounce back in their second year.

Redskins get it back at the 42.

They can't kill anything. They can't find anything dead.

This will be 22 consecutive losses overall.

Inside the 30, he fumbles the ball.

That might be a safety.

Oh, horsesh--. Horsesh--.

No [bleep] guts.

That's what's wrong with us.

Looking at Tampa Bay, you figure they're

going to have to beat somebody.

Law of averages says somebody's going to come in here

and not going to play right.

When you're losing, not for just one year,

when you're going into the second season,

you still haven't won a game.

We, as a band of players,

every practice, we did work to get better.

We just didn't have the people to move our offense.

The defense was on the field for so many plays.

We got them beat. They got a punt.

Now offense go out, three plays, defense, get ready.

We just got off the field, got to go right back.

I might have played 100 snaps, you know, one game.

I'm just thankful that I survived.

You know, it's all about winning.

It's not about who plays the best on defense.

End of the game, End of the day, it's whether you win or lose.

And our record proved that we were

a pretty lousy football team.

No team had ever gone winless before in even a single season.

And with only two games remaining on the year,

the Bucs are looking to make it two in a row.

The Titanic and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Titanic and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Name two disasters that were accompanied by band music.

It wasn't only Johnny Carson.

A lot of people were making fun of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

George Carlin is doing jokes.

Red Fox is doing jokes on the Buccaneers.

The TV show "What's Happening."

First half the score is Oakland, 48 and Tampa Bay, nothing.

Losing became really hard on these men mentally.

It was like being shell-shocked.

Any pluses coming out of this?

We seem to be awfully good if it rains real hard.

Well, that was coach.

Everything that was bad,

he would try to give it a little humor.

Top of the list was the one that they asked,

what do you think about the execution of your team today?

He says he's all in favor of it.

So that got a little joke around the country, I think.

Well, we didn't block too well.

But we made up for it by not tackling.

With all of the losing,

McKay, his sarcasm turned inward towards the team.

It doesn't mean that I don't care about winning,

but that's my thing.

And these kind of shirts are out.

It says, go for zero.

It shows the Buccaneer boat sinking, you know?

It got rough in 1977.

People wondered if Tampa was Loser Town,

was something in the water there.

Welcome to the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans

for this afternoon's NFC matchup.

It's the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against the New Orleans Saints.

Who knows, this may be the day for Tampa Bay.

They've been waiting 27 straight Sundays.

After 0 and 26, we're playing New Orleans.

In New Orleans, by the way.

It's the second to last game of the year,

Hank Stram is the head coach of the Saints.

Hank and my dad, truly best friends.

Now we're going to go play them.

Archie Manning is the starting quarterback for the Saints.

He is one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL.

Archie had said some things and kind of got back to us,

you know, cannon fodder, that he put in newspapers.

How it would be embarrassing

to lose to the Buccaneers.

Any little thing that an opponent would say about you,

you want to play it up.

Manning said this, they said that.

You have no chance to win.

As a defensive unit, it did fire us up.

We had each other's back.

Just all it did was just add fire.

There's no way they're coming out of this one today.

New Orleans at their 26-yard line

and Archie Manning wants to put it up.

Down he goes! Lee Roy Selman!

He just overpowers everybody here.

Archie Manning throwing from out of the end zone

and he is going long.

Intercepted, Mike Washington.

And Washington giving it back to Sudrick Brown

and Brown is inside Saints territory to the 34-yard line.

Tampa Bay will start a drive in Orleans,

into the field.

Our guys were relentless,

tough, physically, mentally.

Touchdown!

And the Buccaneers have their first touchdown in three weeks.

I remember feeling so proud

of how our guys hit their guys.

Here's Manning, big rush and Lee Roy Selman from behind.

Lays him out at the 43-yard line

and Archie wondering did somebody

get the number of that truck that just ran over me?

I remember Mike Washington and that game

making two big interceptions.

Set back, Scott throwing. Intercepted!

That could be an easy six points.

Touchdown!

Hank Scram chewing on that gum and shaking his head.

I don't believe it, he's saying.

We put on a show that day in the Superdome.

Hires it over the middle!

There's another touchdown!

Look at that Tampa Bay bench.

Oh, they are getting excited now.

This is their Super Bowl.

You know, you have to see it as,

apart from the Super Bowls,

as certainly the most important game

in the history of the franchise.

That is three touchdowns scored by the Tampa Bay defense.

Even Johnny Carson is going to have to find

some new material this week.

Been a long time coming.

The young, aggressive Tampa Bay Buccaneers

have their first victory.

I mean, winning that first game,

what a weight to carry as a professional football team.

We just proved to ourselves that we are able,

as a team, to do this.

It's been a long time coming.

I haven't had it for a long time and it's just new.

It's all over again. It's starting all over for me.

And it'll be a happy ride home back to Tampa after this one.

Plane ride home, the plane was just rocking.

We were so excited and we knew for the first time we could win.

Nobody sat down.

The pilot came back a couple of times.

You guys have to sit down.

Nobody sat down.

I mean, Abe Gibbons, 360 pounds,

he's dancing in the aisle with the stewardesses.

There's got to be a lot of happy folks in the Tampa Bay area.

And I'm sure a lot of them will be on hand

to greet the Buccaneers

when they arrive home at 8:15 tonight

to, I am sure, quite a welcome.

When we got on our bus to come home,

cars were lined up from the airport

all the way back to One Buc Place.

With people yelling and shouting,

I was not prepared for that.

And it had to be at least 20,000 to 30,000 people.

I'm driving down the back road

and my assistant Frankie says, he said,

"Pat, there's somebody on our roof."

That was the Buccaneer cheerleaders.

The people were just going out of their minds

for us to win a game on the road that they can see on TV

and get in their cars and come to that facility at 12 midnight.

I don't think people left there until 4 or 5 in the morning.

Unless you were part of losing 26 games in a row,

you don't know how much that moment meant.

I think number one, it was a celebration.

I think number two, it was relief of, thank God,

truly the weight of the world off the shoulders.

JOHN McKAY: I was elated to get the monkey off our back.

I didn't know how long that would go.

That was my elation.

And I think it created a bond between the team

and the city that prior to that probably didn't exist.

I think that's what made it possible for us

to get through that is because our fans

weren't making fun of us.

They understood the situation we were in

and they supported us.

When we saw them, we understood what we'd done.

When you do something and a whole bunch of other people

is made happy or their lives make better,

that's the ultimate.

So it was good.

They paid the price for us and...

they hung in there with us.

Great fans.

They won their first game after losing 26

and I've been making jokes about the Buccaneers ever since then.

So they sent me the ball, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,

New Orleans Saints, December 11, 1977, the first winner.

This is really a new product because it's hardly been used.

After 0 and 26, we just won.

We know we can win,

but we're still not quite good enough players.

I went to Tampa in 1978 and I was going to be calling plays

and an assistant there

and it was obvious we needed

more offensive firepower for sure.

So we're going to have to build this

primarily through the draft.

We had the first overall pick obviously,

so I knew we have to get a great quarterback.

You have to have a quarterback to win.

There were several players

that we were looking at in that first round.

One of them was Doug Williams.

Well, it's that time of year again

when we recognize excellence on the gridiron.

And now, ladies and gentlemen,

here is the Associated Press All-America football team

for the 1977 season.

Doug Williams, Gramlbing State University, quarterback.

I went to a small school in Louisiana, Grambling.

In his four years at Grambling,

Williams has thrown 84 touchdown passes, an NCAA record.

This season alone, going into tonight's game

against Norfolk State,

Williams had thrown 29 touchdown passes,

including seven in one game.

In 1978, there had not been an African-American quarterback

that had ever been chosen as a first round pick.

What would it take for Doug Williams

to make it in the National Football League?

An opportunity to play.

Taking a Black quarterback in the first round, I mean,

that was going to be a huge step.

But Coach McKay had guts, and he told me,

I want to find out everything I can

about this quarterback at Grambling, Doug Williams.

And so I met Doug at Grambling.

I think I stayed three days.

We talked about family. We talked about real life.

We talked about growing up.

But at the end of the day, we always talked about football.

Hit it off right off the bat.

Obviously, I was really impressed.

But in 1978, there was still a lot going on from diversity.

If we made a decision to go with Doug,

that was going to be a huge, huge step.

Well, I get a call from the Houston Oilers.

They wanted that first pick,

and I trade our first for the 17th pick in the draft.

With that trade, I also get who would eventually become

an All-Pro tight end, Jimmy Giles.

They know at that particular time,

a lot of team was not drafting Black quarterbacks.

So they felt like, if I trade with Houston,

he'll be there in 17.

Sure enough, it was 15, 16.

I hand the card up to this kid that was there.

He walks it up to Pete Rosell.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers, first round selection,

quarterback, Doug Williams of Grambling.

Every team and their representative

that was there turned their heads and looked towards me.

And they're thinking, you just drafted a Black quarterback

in the first round that's going to play in the south.

As old cliché , you can't go no further south than Tampa.

If you go any further, you're in the gulf.

Coaches, most of whom are white,

seem to believe that Blacks are superior athletes

but inferior thinkers.

I think most of America really thought that a Black quarterback

didn't have the capability or the mentality to do that.

Pro football fans for years have asked this question.

I'm going to ask it to you.

Can a Black quarterback really make it big

in the National Football League?

I got a lot of hate mail.

I would just throw it in the trash can,

especially when I got the box with the watermelon in it.

Here's a rotten watermelon with a note in it saying,

"throw this to those ends. They might can catch this."

With Doug being one of the first Black quarterbacks,

he dealt with some issues

that were uncomfortable for him and all of us.

He needed a lot of encouragement.

That's what I remember most.

Lee Roy encouraging him every time he got a chance to.

They had this camaraderie and friendship

that was very deep and close.

How do you react when you hear people saying

that you can't make it in the National Football League

as a top flight quarterback

because he's a Black quarterback?

Well, I think that's utterly ridiculous

and people that make those kind of statements

have not grown up in our society.

You either can play this game or you can't play it.

The color of your skin has nothing to do with it.

I mean, they bet it on Black and they won.

I remember our very first practice.

He fired this thing.

He could throw the ball so hard

that the players actually would turn around and go,

did you see that?

Oh my God.

A ball flew by my head with a zip

that I had not heard before.

I love Doug. I loved his snap count.

Me and my brothers used to imitate Doug

when we were playing quarterback.

He had this high, like singing voice.

Run, let it fly!

And then he could get real low like Barry White.

He was awesome.

Ever since pre-season drill,

you know, the boys was really excited over the fact

that, you know, a Heisman trophy candidate was in camp,

you know, and it was me.

Let's go, G, 27 blast, on one.

All I knew was winning, you know, and how to win.

So when I got to Tampa,

my most important thing was, hey, let's win.

The leadership of Doug Williams,

we knew we were there for one reason,

and that's to be successful.

An excellent play,

a super pass from the rookie Doug Williams,

and Tampa is in front.

Doug Williams, rookie quarterback.

He has given the Buccaneers offense life

because Tampa Bay is a surprising

four and four this year.

We'll see now where we get the ball, Dougie.

Now, somebody told me that if John McKay

calls you Dougie, that means he likes you.

Dougie, got plenty of time now.

Williams rolling left, going for it all.

He's got Owens open.

Touchdown, Morris Owens.

Our feeling with Doug Williams, once we got him,

we had nobody else that I thought could ever

lead us across the street as a winning team.

So we put Doug in as a rookie.

He has done very well since that time.

We had won four games in my rookie year, you know,

and that's more than they had won

the previous two years all together.

we had won four games, and we was out in L.A.

The Coliseum in Los Angeles,

where the Rams bring in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

I was back to pass, had a hard hit, beside the head.

He's down, too.

Williams is down, and he's hurt.

He really got nailed after it.

They had to blitz on, and they really got him.

My jaw was broken in three places.

There's Mr. Doug Williams right there with his jaw wrapped up.

I had lost 20 pounds.

My pants wouldn't even fit me.

That's how many pounds I had lost.

Couldn't play until the last game of the season.

Last game of the season, we played New Orleans Saints.

I played with a big old Shark Cage helmet on.

They wired his jaw shut,

but they had two little clamps on the side of it

that you could adjust because if he got out there

and was throwing up or something,

this could be a big issue.

How many guys are going to do that?

That just shows you his toughness.

It's one of those things that if you love the game,

want to play the game, you find a way to get in.

That was his commitment to being a success for the Bucs.

Before some of the fouls that are called

like hitting quarterbacks today, going in low,

back in the day when he played, anything goes.

He was the toughest son of a bitch to ever play the position.

This guy meant business.

And his voice, his command, it was special.

It was special.

That season, we could have won more games.

I think we won like five games.

But we lost six or seven games by less than six points.

In the end of that year, we knew we had something going.

In 1979, everybody was feeling good.

We just had so many guys that can make us the team

that we wanted to be in order to win.

You know, Batman used to bring his boombox

to the dressing room every day,

and he played this song, "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now."

Let's go! Let's go!

That was our motto.

"Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now."

That's Williams, trying to put it up in the air.

Giles open... Giles got it!

Putting on the afterburners for the 10!

And he's in! Touchdown!

In trouble, he's going to be sacked.

Up to the left, and Richard Wood was there to stop him.

It was a spark there, it was a spark.

We just felt that, hey, we do this right,

we'll be in the Super Bowl,

and nobody's gonna stop us.

Williams flips it.

Touchdown to Jimmy Giles!

I had to cover Jimmy Giles in practice every day,

so I knew how fast he was, and how strong he was.

He made me a better cover safety

just by having to go against him every day in practice.

Our offense started to come on.

That a baby, Ricky! That's what we need!

And our defense just getting better, and better, and better.

In fact, we were the best defense in football.

The only touchdown I ever scored,

Wiley Chambers created a fumble,

and I picked it up, and I was lamboring along

down the sidelines.

Fortunately, I was able to get to the end zone and score.

Teams took us serious.

We weren't a laughing stock anymore.

People had to bring their best goods to play against us.

This club is a definite division contender for the playoffs,

- which is a great story. - They sure are.

One game that year, Doug fell on his rear end,

and he threw the touchdown pass from his rear end.

Williams wonder offside, throws a pass...

That was pretty spectacular.

Sometimes, you know, instinct kicks in.

Just naturally, I just floated the pass right into his hands.

Absolutely fantastic.

1979, that 5-0 start was really fun.

To see the Bucs end up

on the cover of Sports Illustrated was really cool.

"Tampa Bay:

Unbeaten, untied, and unbelievable."

Oh, man, that was special.

I had to keep that magazine, I can tell you.

It just ignited a spark,

not just in our community,

but I think the country.

What's your reaction to the sudden rush

of national exposure and attention the Buccaneers

are now getting?

Now that we are winning, now people are going

to have to say, because they know

I'm still dumb, they're going to have to say

they must have a lot of good players.

And that's good.

You are looking live at sold-out Tampa Stadium

in Tampa, Florida

where a very interesting thing went on just a few seconds ago.

They are oiling the goalposts,

because if the amazing Buccaneers win today,

they're in the playoffs.

Oh, boy. Whew!

As football is in pro football, it's a marathon season.

We started to hit a little rocky road there a little bit.

O'Donoghue will attempt...

Blocked!

The Vikings block another one.

The Chicago Bears postpone Tampa Bay's

Central Division championship victory party once again today.

We've been in adverse, you know, situations before,

but, hey, we've been just put down,

but we just have to rise up and come back this week.

We needed one win to go to the playoffs,

and we lost three games in a row.

What the hell are we doing?

I mean, we got beat like we had stole a government mule, man.

That was the moment when you said, oh, my, you know,

this may not turn out to be the Cinderella season

that we thought 79 would become.

Now's the time! Now!

That panic mode sets in, you realize now

you down to your last chance.

You got to win this game.

If you don't, you go home.

They say the Bucs play the best

when their backs against the wall,

and if that is so, they should finally wrap up

the NFC Central Division title today against the Chiefs.

The fourth time in as many weeks,

Tampa Bay tries for the magic crown.

It was raining cats and dogs.

It was raining so hard that the rain

was coming down over the stairs like a waterfall.

I mean, we were playing in a sea of water.

The water was above the grass. We were running in water.

RICH McKAY: They couldn't gain a yard.

He fumbles the ball,

He picks it up and is sacked immediately

after a pick up maybe of a half a yard.

We were gaining a bunch of yards,

but we kept turning the ball over at the wrong time,

whether it was a fumble,

whether it was a ball that got intercepted.

The pass went out long, it's overthrown,

maybe intercepted, it is.

We had a TD and the ball just slipped out his hand.

The ball pops loose.

The receivers catch the ball and slide

all the way across the field.

What a rainy afternoon,

and the rain certainly will have an effect.

With the score, Tampa Bay nothing, Kansas City nothing.

Just one of those games where you just felt like,

this is going to come down to one play.

And now, on comes Neil O'Donoghue

Three points. It's enough to win.

Don't slip, don't fall, don't take any unnecessary chances.

God, at the time of Neil's field goal,

I want to say the rain had stopped.

It just seemed right that the sky had come loose

and broke all the bad memories and washed all that away.

Now, waiting the snap from Steve Wilson.

It is a long snap, the kick is up.

Good! Neil O'Donoghue 19 yards field goal.

The players are really whooping it up on the sideline.

This is what you like to see.

And we are watching the campaign.

The Buccaneers have won

the NFC Central Division title.

All I can remember

is being on the ground in all his mud.

But we were enjoying each other and having a great time.

And I still remember that.

That's one of the things you never get out your mind.

Hey, wait! What's it say?

What does this say?

It was amazing to see all the guys

talking about how great it was to be able to go to playoff

from worst to first.

All that weight on your shoulders

just lifted at that particular time.

We had done what we set out to do,

and that was to go to the playoffs.

And Gentlemen, who picked us to be last?

All the horse's asses.

It took us all that time to build the momentum

to get to the playoffs.

And we knew we weren't going to lose.

We knew we weren't going to lose.

Welcome to Tampa Stadium,

and more specifically, welcome to the playoffs.

And here we go, the playoff game is underway.

We were a little pissed off

because we had some clippings that were in the locker room

that said the Eagles had packed their bags

to go to California to play the Rams.

Fumbles, a scramble,

and Tampa Bay recovers!

John McKay loved this running game.

And once he got that running game going with Ricky Bell,

he said we're going to ride him to the Super Bowl.

There he goes. He's in there.

Ricky Bell scores.

Just as the season came along,

he was the featured guy, you know,

and the ball was given to Ricky time and time again.

One person was not going to bring him down.

He was the Bell Cow. We rolled Ricky Bell.

And, you know, he would be hurting,

but you would never know it

because he wanted to give you everything he had on every play.

That's Bell, and he's over.

Ricky Bell has a second touchdown.

And the Orange Wave is at high tide now.

It looks like Tampa Bay goes to the championship.

What an underdog.

What would you have done in August?

Who would have said Tampa Bay will play

for the National Football Championship?

Who would have believed two years ago

that a team who had lost their first 26 games in a row

would be one step away from the Super Bowl right now?

Welcome, everybody, to one of the most improbable sights

in the rich history of championship events

in this country.

Only four years old and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

are on the brink of going to the Super Bowl

against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Holy cow, we did it.

I can't believe we're here.

So all we have to do is go out here and win.

And we'll be playing for a chance to go to the Super Bowl.

And you talk about some pretty good hitting that day,

our defense brought it to them.

Wendell Tyler hit down right at the line of scrimmage

and knocked backwards.

You know, we felt like we were going to beat him, but...

William fires and it's picked off.

Midway through the game, Doug Williams tears his bicep, right?

The Rams really did a number on Doug in two years,

a broken jaw and a bicep.

Gets away from it, fires and he is hit.

The muscle right there, he just tore it in half, you know,

and I was unable to throw the rest of the night.

It was a tough night.

We, all week, as a defensive unit,

told ourselves that they will not score any touchdowns.

But lo and behold, they got three field goals.

Now that'll do it.

Rams headed for the Super Bowl in Pasadena.

Los Angeles against Pittsburgh.

As the game is winding down,

the fans in Tampa Bay give them a standing ovation.

72,000 fans packed to the gills

gave the Buccaneers a standing ovation,

showing America that the Buccaneers weren't the Yucks.

That was over and that the fans love this team.

We wanted to give them something to be proud of.

And 1979 was that year.

What a great year.

What a great year for the Buccaneers

to finally explode on the scene.

And it meant something. It really was special.

It really was a special time.

When you think about where we had come from,

the fans thought looking towards the future

at that particular time,

they had believed that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had arrived.

Jimmy Giles, take three. Marker.

Richard Batman Woods, take one.

Doug Williams, take two.

Lee Roy Salmon.

That's the greatest player in Buccaneer's history.

Probably the nicest guy you ever would have wanted to meet,

and maybe the most fiercest guy

you ever didn't want to meet on the football field.

Ooh, boy.

Well, I gotta say, you know, Lee Roy,

because he started off the trend of great players here.

I want to put myself in that group, too.

He had been in a full-man front,

where they could not block him

double team all the time, one-on-one outside.

He would have been disqualified from the NFL,

because he would have wrecked so much havoc

on all the teams it wouldn't even been close.

Lee Roy Selmon.

Case closed.