Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (colloquially known as the Bucs) are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The club joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team, along with the Seattle Seahawks, and played its first season in the American Football Conference (AFC) West division. Prior to the 1977 season, Tampa Bay switched conferences and divisions with Seattle, becoming a member of the NFC Central division. The Seahawks eventually rejoined the NFC in 2002, leaving the Buccaneers as the only NFL team not to play in their original conference. As a result of the league's realignment prior to the 2002 season, the Buccaneers joined three former NFC West teams to form the NFC South. The club is owned by the Glazer family and plays its home games at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Buccaneers have won two Super Bowl championships and, along with the Baltimore Ravens, are the only two NFL franchises who are undefeated in multiple Super Bowl appearances. They were regarded as a perennial losing franchise for most of their first two decades due to suffering 26 consecutive losses in their first two seasons (including a winless inaugural season) and 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1983 to 1996—the most in NFL history—contributing to their league-worst overall winning percentage at .406. Despite these early struggles, Tampa Bay is the first post-merger expansion team to clinch a division title, win a playoff game, and host a conference championship, all of which they accomplished by their fourth season in 1979. The team's image improved by the time of their first championship in 2002, also the first for any of the six organizations built after the merger,[a] but they would not win another playoff game until their second Super Bowl championship season in 2020.
Logos and uniforms[edit]
Logos[edit]
Since their inception in 1976, the Buccaneers have gone through two distinct logo/uniform eras. From 1976 to 1996, the team utilized orange, red, and white uniforms with a "Bucco Bruce" logo. Since 1997, the team has utilized red and pewter uniforms, with a "skull and swords" logo.
The original "Bucco Bruce" logo has seen three distinct versions. The original version was the most unique; both in color and design. The logo was refreshed in 1992 with the most obvious differences being the design of the face, specifically the open eye, the design on the dagger, and the usage of white near the neck of the first design. The 2009 throwback uniforms utilized a cleaned up and crisper version of the 1976–1991 logo. From 1997 onwards, the Buccaneers' newer "skulls and swords" logo has gone through three iterations. The first was somewhat smaller on the helmet, and featured a more conventionally-shaped skull. The second edition was larger on the helmet, had a different shade of red, and a different design for the shape and face of the skull. The current version is mostly the same as the second, with only minor changes, including a smaller size on the helmet.