The 2000 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season began with the team trying to improve on a 11-5 season from 1999. Shaun King, who took over the quarterback position as a rookie midway through the 1999 season, became the full-time starter for 2000. In April, the Buccaneers acquired wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson via a trade from the Jets. It was a highly-publicized transaction, which made Johnson the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL, and increased expectations for the club.
In week 16 the Buccaneers won one of the more notable games in the history of Monday Night Football against the St. Louis Rams. It was a rematch of the previous season's NFC Championship game.
In the final week of the regular season, the Buccaneers faced Green Bay, with the NFC Central title on the line. With a victory at Lambeau Field, the Buccaneers were poised to win the division, and secure a first round bye for the playoffs. After a rally to tie the game in the fourth quarter, kicker Martin Gramatica missed a game-winning field attempt at the end of regulation. The Buccaneers lost the game in overtime, and failed to win the division. The dejected club fell to the #5 seed, and was routed by Philadelphia in the wild card round.
Read more about 2000 Tampa Bay Buccaneers Season: Awards and Records
Famous quotes containing the words bay and/or season:
“Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely. I well recall the time when prime hard crabs of the channel species, blue in color, at least eight inches in length along the shell, and with snow-white meat almost as firm as soap, were hawked in Hollins Street of Summer mornings at ten cents a dozen.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)