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Tampa Bay has a strange history with Monday Night Football. From the beginning Bucs fans hated Howard Cosell because he supposedly wouldnt include Bucs games during his famous half time highight, even though a producer controlled which teams to talk about. The Bucs got their first Monday Night game in 1980 after their Cinderella Season.
The Very first game was a Thursday Night special in week 2, a rematch of the NFC Championship game- LA Rams at Tampa Bay. The Bucs avenged their 9-0 loss with a 10-9 win. But their first actual Monday Night game came a few weeks later, against Chicago, and a lifeless Tampa Bay team got shut out.
SInce 1980 wasnt a good year for Tampa Bay, they were shut out of MNF until their 1981 NFC Central title got them a few games in 1982. Problem is the strike killed one of them, but the remaining one was fantastic. An 0-3 Bucs team faced a must win game against the Miami Dolphins, and the Bucs prevailed on their way to a 5-4 season good enough for the playoffs.
Which means it was good enough for another MNF game, against Green Bay at Home, week 15 when the Bucs would be fighting the Packers for the title right? Well no, Tampa Bay was 2-12 at that point, and it was not only the last MNF game for the Bucs for 15 years, but the last MNF game for Howard Cosell, who did not take the flight to San Francisco, rather retiring after calling the Bucs 12-9 OT Loss.
It would be 15 years before Al Michaels called Tampa Bays name out in a MNF contest, one in which the Bucs stunk the place up, but the Bucs got a home game too and it would be the first win over Green Bay in 3 years! Raymond James went nuts for MNF, and the Bucs were called upon to play on the national Stage 13 more times.
The last time the Bucs played MNF was the beginning of the end for the Jon Gruden led franchise, beginning a 4 game losing streak that caused him to get fired and put IN the MNF booth!
The last home game on MNF was Tiki Barber vs Ronde Barber as the Bucs beat the NY Giants.
Its 8 years coming..so YES…were ready for some football!
The Bucs are 10-9 all time on Monday Night Football, sometimes its incorrectly reported as 9-9 like this list here, however the first ever appearance was on Monday Night Football, a Thursday edition featuring a rematch of the NFC Championship game Rams at Bucs the year before. However the first appearance on MONDAY for MNF was against the Bears as listed below. The Bucs won the first game 10-9 .
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