Tampa Bay Buccaneers Lost Their First 26 Games as a NFL Franchise
Published on March 8th, 2025 12:40 pm ESTWritten By: Dave Manuel
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have won multiple Super Bowls as a franchise though their first few years in the league were some of the worst that the NFL has ever seen. The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers were bad. Really, really bad.
The Buccaneers had to rely on picking up older players in the expansion draft. This problem was compounded by the fact that the other teams in the league were cagey about the medical issues that the unprotected players had. It turns out that many of the players that the Buccaneers picked up in the expansion draft had medical issues - in fact, the Buccaneers finished the 1976 season with 17 players on injured reserves, many who had pre-existing issues.
The Buccaneers had some more bad luck - they had the first overall pick in the 1976 NFL Draft but it was considered one of the worst drafts of all time.
Most teams would have liked to have drafted a generational quarterback talent with the first overall pick. There were no such picks in the 1976 NFL Draft - in fact, that draft has been called one of the worst ever in terms of quarterback talent.
The Bucs would take defensive end Lee Roy Selmon with the first overall pick. He turned out to be a very good pick, though the Bucs would have liked a quarterback instead.
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The Buccaneers lost all fourteen of their games in their inaugural season, and most of the games were a blowout.
The Bucs were shut out in their first two games, losing 20-0 to the Houston Oilers and 23-0 to the San Diego Chargers.
The Bucs had some close losses in the middle of the season, losing 13-10 to the Seattle Seahawks and 23-20 to the Miami Dolphins.
The injuries started to really pile up at that point and the wheels completely fell off for the Buccaneers. The Bucs would lose the last six games of the season by 35, 34, 17, 33, 42 and 17 points respectively.
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The 1977 season started off with more of the same, as the Buccaneers lost 12 straight games to start the season.
This set the mark for most consecutive losses by a NFL franchise at 26 - a mark which will almost certainly never be matched, due to the steps that the league takes to maintain parity.
The 1977 Tampa Bay Buccaneers were a much better team than the previous version, as they rarely got blown out of games. In fact, they were very unlucky not to get a win before December 11th, 1977, when they defeated the New Orleans Saints 33-14 to finally snap their losing streak.
The Bucs would close out the season with a second straight win to finish the 1977 campaign with a record of 2-12.
The team would continue to make strides in the 1978 season, as they would finish 5-11. The Bucs would make the playoffs for the first time in 1979, as they finished the season with a record of 10-6.
