The Tampa Bay Buccaneers Remain Perfect in Super Bowl Games

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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers stand as one of two National Football League (NFL) teams, along with the Baltimore Ravens, to have multiple Super Bowl victories and no Super Bowl losses. In 1976, the Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks joined the NFL as expansion teams, nine years after the New Orleans Saints.

Tampa Bay had an unceremonious start in the league, going 0-14 during the franchise’s inaugural season. The team scored 20 points once and went scoreless in five games. It retained head coach John McKay and made steady progress over the next few seasons, winning two and five games before going 10-6 in 1979, which marked the franchise’s first playoff appearance. The Buccaneers advanced to the conference finals but fell to the Los Angeles Rams by a score of 9-0.

Between 1980 and 1996, Tampa Bay struggled to build off this success and recorded just two winning seasons, including a 5-4 season in 1982. However, the 1997 team went 10-6, matching the franchise’s best record and advancing to the playoffs for the first time in nearly three decades. Led by coach Tony Dungy, the Buccaneers saw the franchise’s longest stretch of success, going 60-36 between 1997 and 2002, culminating in its first Super Bowl win.

Receiver Keyshawn Johnson, running back Michael Pittman, and quarterback Brad Johnson powered the 2002 offense. Dungy coached the team until the start of the 2002 season. Then, Jon Gruden replaced him. The team ended the regular season with a 15-0 shutout of the Chicago Bears before opening the post-season with a 31-6 drubbing of the San Francisco 49ers. After a comfortable 27-10 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Conference Championship, the franchise advanced to its first Super Bowl.

The game began quietly as the first quarter ended with a three-point tie. The Tampa Bay offense broke the game open in the second quarter, going 17-0. The Buccaneers won the game by a final score of 48-21. Gruden stands as the winning coach, but the franchise has credited Dungy with assembling and developing the championship core.

Gruden led the team to several winning seasons and playoff appearances but did not win another post-season game in Tampa Bay. Following the 2008 season, he left, and the Buccaneers would win just three games. It tied the franchise’s second-worst record in 2014 by going 2-14. The franchise went 7-9 in 2019 before a significant reversal of fortunes.

Ahead of the 2020 season, Tampa Bay signed Tom Brady, the winningest quarterback in Super Bowl history. Brady had won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. With Brady, Tampa Bay had a mostly successful regular season, winning 11 games and ending the season on a four-game winning streak following a Week 13 bye week. The team carried this momentum into the playoffs, winning three close games to advance to the franchise’s second Super Bowl, this time against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Brady ended the first quarter by completing an eight-yard pass to former Patriots teammate Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski scored again midway through the second while the Chiefs struggled to generate any scoring outside of field goals. The Tampa Bay defense clamped down in the second half, leading to a final score of 31-9 and the franchise’s second championship.

The Baltimore Ravens won their first Super Bowl in 2000 after just four seasons in the league and a combined record of 24-31-1. They won again in 2012. The New Orleans Saints and New York Jets also have perfect Super Bowl records but have only appeared in one championship game each.