Tampa Bay Buccaneers 3 Minnesota Vikings 9 Saturday 24 September 1977 at Tampa Stadium
Randy Hedberg completed seven passes but three of them were to the Vikings and any hopes of winning the home opener in 1977 went the same way. The Bucs were knocking on the Minnesota goal-line in the second half but had to resort to an Allan Leavitt fieldgoal from the one-yard line and never threatened again. The winning score came in the third quarter when Fran Tarkenton scrambled around in his famous way, and found Chuck Foreman from 31 yards out. The Bucs were 14 point underdogs in this game but once again, did manage to cover the spread.
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS RUSHING BUCS: Bell 21-66, Hedberg 6-25, DuBose 3-12, Davis 1-2, Williams 1-0, Carter 2-(-1). VIKINGS: Foreman 14-58, McClanahan 9-33, Johnson 4-11, Miller 2-5, Tarkenton 3-(-3). PASSING BUCS: Hedberg 14-4-51-3-0, Huff 3-1-(-3)-0-0. VIKINGS: Tarkenton 38-25-223-2-1. RECEIVING BUCS: Owens 2-26, McKay 2-25, DuBose 1-(-3). VIKINGS: McClanahan 5-46, Miller 5-45, Foreman 4-52, White 3- 40, Voight 3-14, Rashad 3-13, Johnson 2-13. INTERCEPTIONS BUCS: D Selmon 1-9, White 1-3. VIKINGS: Krause 1-25, Blair 1-18, Wright 1-5. KICK RETURNS BUCS: A.Davis 1-27, Hagins 1-26. VIKINGS: McClanahan 1-18, Miller 1-17, Grim 1-4. PUNT RETURNS BUCS: Reece 2-19, Hagins 1-9. VIKINGS: Grim 5-15. SACKS BUCS: Rudolph 1-12. VIKINGS: White 1-12, Eller 1-2.
SCORING MIN 12:48-2Q Safety - Hedberg sacked by Eller in the endzone TB 1:57-2Q Leavitt FG19 MIN 7:25-3Q Foreman 31 pass from Tarkenton (Cox kick)
COMMENTARY CREW Unknown
STARTERS OFFENSE DEFENSE LT 75 Reavis LDE 78 Rudolph LG 62 Winans DT 76 Pear C 51 Ryczek RDE 63 L Selmon RG 68 Medlin LOLB 57 Lewis RT 70 Carlton LILB 61 D Selmon TE 86 Moore RILB 54 Wood WR 85 Owens ROLB 56 C Johnson WR 89 McKay LCB 45 White FB 35 DuBose SS 33 Cotney RB 42 Bell FS 34 Brown QB 14 Hedberg RCB 40 Washington SUBSTITUTIONS 4 Green, 9 Leavitt, 19 Huff, 25 Jordan, 28 Davis, 32 L Carter, 36 Winfrey, 43 Williams, 46 Reece, 52 Harris, 53 Bonness, 59 Lemon, 64 Robinson, 65 R Johnson, 66 B Carter, 73 Hannah, 77 Kollar, 79 Wilson, 81 Hagins, 83 Nafziger, 87 Mucker INACTIVE 17 Blount, 80 Novak
VIDEO CLIPS Game footage of this game is not available. But a brief compilation of plays from the game has been put together from the NFL’s 1977 season film of the Buccaneers albeit without sound