Regular Season
The Buccaneers opened the season, like their expansion brethren the Seattle Seahawks, 200-to-1 longshots to win the Super Bowl. Their regular-season opener against the New York Giants marked the first time that Las Vegas oddsmakers favored the Buccaneers to win, with Jimmy the Greek naming them as 1-point favorites. A pair of mistake-prone early losses left McKay threatening to release players who cause game-losing errors, a change from the earlier attitude of tolerating mistakes from players who were regarded as having potential. With the defense among the best in the league and the offense sparking behind Doug Williams' leadership, the Buccaneers began to be respected as a competitive NFL team. Coach McKay's respect for Williams was such that he spoke of eventually letting Williams call his own plays in the huddle. McKay's insistence on calling plays from the sideline had been a source of much conflict between McKay and Steve Spurrier during the 1976 season. Williams led the Buccaneers to a 4-4 start before suffering an injury that required his jaw to be wired shut. Even before Williams' injury, the Buccaneers again found themselves with an injured reserve list in double digits. At midseason, the Buccaneers had 11 players on injured reserve, not counting waived quarterback Mike Boryla. McKay felt that, with a healthy offense, the team would have finished with at least a 10-6 record. Despite a defense that ranked fourth overall in the NFL, the Buccaneers were only able to win one of their remaining eight games behind backup quarterback Mike Rae. McKay summed up the season with the word "frustration". The 9-7 record that he predicted the team would finish with would have been enough to win the NFC Central. Nose tackle Dave Pear became the first Buccaneer selected to the Pro Bowl, finishing third in voting among defensive tackles behind Randy White and Larry Brooks. Linebacker Richard Wood's 168 tackles stood for 14 years as a team record.
Read more about this topic: 1978 Tampa Bay Buccaneers Season
Famous quotes containing the words regular and/or season:
““I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.”
“What was that?” inquired Alice.
“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
“I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“The LORD will open for you his rich storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all your undertakings.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 28:12.