The Most Miserable Offense in NFL History

the year is 1976. with the nfl's rise in popularity they added two new teams the seattle seahawks and the tampa bay buccaneers geographically with being on the west coast the seahawks joined the nfc west makes sense and on the east coast the buccaneers joined the afc west what that doesn't make any sense it didn't actually matter since both teams played different schedules than other teams but still weird nonetheless anyways in march 1976 both teams participated in an expansion draft and selected 39 players from the other 26 franchises with their new rosters intact seattle and tampa bay geared up for their inaugural season to put it lightly things were a struggle both clubs lost their first five games mostly by blowouts before they met in week 6. this had officially become one of the saddest matchups the nfl had ever seen seattle managed to eke out a 13-10 victory in one of the most forgettable performances ever from there the seahawks would only manage to win one more game mostly losing by large margins but despite this they were still much more impressive than the lowly bucks who failed to win a single game the bucks lost by an average margin of over 20 points a contest they had been the worst team in the league by far especially offensively they were shut out five times and averaged an abysmal 8.9 points per game the 1976 bucks are well known as perhaps the worst team to ever exist they surely produced one of the worst offenses of all time even reddit agrees but to me the saddest part about all of this was that the 77 bucks had an even worse offense [Music] get out there you idiot oh guts that's what's wrong with us after the brutal 1976 season head coach john mckay thought his team was going to improve all around but he vastly underestimated how hard it was going to actually be now before we continue to the 77 bucks this video is brought to you by sea geek seeky is a company that i've been working with for a long time and they gather tickets from all across the web and put them into one area making buying simple they have everything from football baseball basketball concerts festivals or more and with so many amazing concerts and festivals happening right now you're not going to want to miss out i'm talking the weekend justin bieber tyler the creator john mayer bad bunny and so much more sigi rates every ticket from 0 to 10 to make sure that you're getting a good deal with green meaning good and red meaning bad and for first first-time buyers use code kto at checkout for 20 off your first purchase make sure to click the link in the description to download the app the 1977 buccaneers went on to become the saddest offense that ever took an nfl field and it was all the result of how the team had been built back in 1976 when the buccaneers were created they hired the highly successful usc coach john mckay who had won multiple national titles to that point he came in with arrogant confidence i don't think the game is that difficult it's no more difficult than college ball not in my opinion like many other college coaches have tried to do mckay came into tampa and ran camp like a drill sergeant a lack of water breaks non-stop hitting drills two a days that lasted 10 weeks they actually were still doing to a days when the season started it was so intense that during a practice one of the players went into the facility for a bathroom break and snuck out the front doors and never returned it actually became a running joke every time someone went to the bathroom like is that dude coming back this type of training proved to do much more harm than good and by the end of the 76th season 21 guys had landed on injured reserve with 18 of them getting knee surgeries 18 knee surgeries are you joking they were down so bad that they literally had a truck driver and an unemployed construction worker on the roster by the end of the year this is all the result of the worst possible combination a first-time gm trying to find talent a first-time head coach who's never been at this level and a brand new team with players who didn't know each other after the bucks finished zero and 14 in 1976 the enthusiasm that had radiated throughout tampa from fans to the players had vanished the team had gone from exciting new beginnings to the laughingstock of pro sports in a year they were essentially the last chance you of the nfl a player's final stop before they were out of the league john mckay's son jk who played wide out for that team said in a documentary that when he had to go up against steelers hall the famed corner mill blunt that's when he realized that he was in the wrong line of work and needed to find another job now when building up the 77 bucks to hopefully be more competitive they actually improved their defense a lot the defense had gone from giving up nearly 30 a game to just less than 16 a game a massive improvement but on the offensive side they were as lost as ever and literally nothing could go right entering the 77th season head coach john mckay declared the team to be quote stronger at every position with the exception of the quarterback man imagine being in the qb room and seeing that quote beginning in the preseason the unimproved quarterback room began to quickly get worse the expected qb battle was supposed to be between mike borilla and gary huff two backup worthy dudes who hadn't played in a year but both suffered knee injuries in the first two preseason games this left an already down bad team to their third and fourth stringers parnell dickinson who had almost no experience and the rookie randy hedberg hedberg had just got done playing at the naia division 2 school minot state this has to be the weakest quarterback battle the league's ever seen which was eventually won out by hedberg so how does a former naia division ii rookie quarterback listed as the fourth stringer who suddenly thrust into the starting role on the league's previously worst offense perform well not good [Music] in game one hedberg threw for 66 yards as the team barely managed to produce over a hundred total yards and three points in game number two hedberg threw almost as many interceptions as he did completions and with even less yards than the week before he was benched following the contest game number three the bucks finally scored their first touchdown of the season because of a fumble return touchdown even with one of their better quarterbacks gary huff coming back to play the offense was still abysmal failing to score any points game number four without the help of another defensive scorer the bucks were held scoreless and gary huff threw three interceptions game number five expansion bowl two going up against the league's worst defense the bucks offense finally got their first touchdown of the season it only took five games they did lose that day but their offense played way better than the previous games this 23 point outing looked like the breakthrough moment that this team needed to spark something so how did it translate well in the next seven games they went scoreless in five of them dude in 12 games they had scored four offensive touchdowns that is insane could you imagine watching your team only score an offensive touchdown once every three games to this point the 77 bucks were zero and 12 and adding that to the previous season they were on a record 26 game losing streak the fans had gotten so relentlessly negative that they made shirts that said the sarcastic quote go for zero let's just say head coach john mckay was at his wit's end there might be a lot of snacks well we didn't block it but we made up for it by not tackling we will attempt to come back next sunday in tampa stadium in front of our own crowd we've now proven we can't play on the road or in front of our own crowd so we we would like to have a neutral site we went through eight quarterbacks every time i looked up start that guy we had no audible system because we had the left guard was from nova scotia the right guard was from we just picked up from philadelphia they probably knew each other's name things had gotten so bad that when the bucks entered week 13 going up against the new orleans saints qb archie manning said that it would be an embarrassment to lose to tampa bay wow an embarrassment i mean it's true but i don't care who you are you see someone say that kind of thing about your team and it has to light a fire under your ass these quotes were posted in the bucks locker room and in week 13 they came ready to play the buccaneers put up 33 points in route to their franchise's first ever win they scored four total touchdowns and guess how many of those were offensive one they had two pick sixes and a fumble recovered in the end zone it literally took one of the greatest defensive performances ever for this team to get over the hump and the following week their defense balled out again forcing four turnovers and they won for the second time in a row this two-game win streak had brought the excitement back to tampa and surely masked what the nfl had just witnessed from the bucks offense so let's take a moment to look at some stats in 14 games the bucks offense was shut out six times that would have been seven if it wasn't for a defensive touchdown as far as total touchdowns go they scored seven offensively that was barely more than what their defense had their three different starting quarterbacks produced some insane touchdown to interception ratios jeb blunt who was brought in right before the regular season eventually started four games and he had zero touchdowns to seven interceptions the rook from minot state randy hedberg had zero touchdowns to ten interceptions and with six starts and by far the best quarterback gary huff had three touchdowns to 13 interceptions this gave them a whopping total of three passing touchdowns to 30 interceptions i think john mckay was too nice when talking about how much his team had changed from 76 to 77 for the super bowl era this is the worst combined quarterback stat line that i have ever seen now to be more fair even though those quarterbacks weren't good it was made far worse by a terrible o-line lackluster skill position talent an inexperienced coaching staff and overall the era that they played in as a whole the saddest nfl offense in league history taking away the defensive touchdowns managed a measly 5.6 points per game now for context here is the 77 bucks numbers compared to every season's worst offenses since the nfl merger to 1977. among those years there were three other teams that were even in the same ballpark in the same season the 77 packers were terrible they only had 11 touchdowns in 14 games giving them 4 more than the bucks and they also had 16 less turnovers the 76 bucks were definitely bad but they literally doubled the 77 teams offensive touchdowns really the closest competitors for worst offense of this era was the 74 falcons they posted very similar qb numbers they only had three more offensive touchdowns and they actually turned the ball over nine more times than the 77 bucks when he put all the numbers on the table the 77 bucks offense was still slightly worse than the 74 falcons they were worse in most categories and they were shut out twice the amount of times so all in all the buccaneers may have the longest losing streak of all time and a record for the most shutouts in a single season but everyone has to start somewhere and for the bucks things really began to turn around after that season the following year their defense improved and with first round quarterback doug williams under center they doubled their offensive output then in 1979 everything had come together the bucks possessed the number one ranked defense in the nfl and their offense improved yet again enough so that tampa bay made their first ever playoff appearance then against the eagles the bucks produced three offensive touchdowns which really it should have been four on their way to victory and an appearance in their first ever nfc championship in that single playoff game alone they almost had half as many touchdowns as their offense produced the entire 77 season [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: KTO

Views: 1,212,183

Keywords: the saddest, most miserable, offense, in nfl history, worst offense, worst teams, 1976 bucs, 1977 bucs, longest losing streak, nfl, kto, kto videos, football, football stories, john mckay, seattle seahawks, expansion franchise

Id: Hw3yWCL50RQ

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 16 2022