Bucs’ Most “Watchable” Game
May 30th, 2025
Unfortunately, not available.
Oh, if only Howard Cosell were still around.
Joe loved Cosell, who made his bones in the Monday Night Football booth. No one was neutral on Cosell. You either loved him or hated him.
Most of the World War II generation, in their 40s when Cosell burst onto the scene, despised him. Their children, the baby boomers, mostly loved Cosell. He brought drama and insight and excitement to the booth. He always kept it real.
When Cosell broadcast a game featuring the Bucs, you knew it was a big game! (Just like you knew it wasn’t a big game when the Bucs were stuck with fossil Dick Stockton or irrelevant Kevin Kugler.) You only needed to hear Cosell’s nasally, booming voice to know a Tampa Bay primetime game meant something.
Joe guesses from reading Dan Pompei’s nugget for The Athletic about each NFL team’s most watchable game, that somehow Cosell could be teleported at age 50 to Oct. 20 in Detroit.
There, at 7 p.m., the Bucs will square off against the Lions.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: at Lions, Week 7
The Bucs went to Detroit early last season and came out with a victory. It was a statement game and confidence builder for a team that was better than many imagined. The expectations are a little higher this season, but in order for the Bucs to keep the expectations high, they will have to show once again they can compete with the best teams in the NFC. This Monday night game is one of four scheduled in prime time for the Bucs.
Joe isn’t sure about the Bucs being “better than many imagined.” The Bucs fought toe-to-toe with the Lions the previous January in the divisional round of the playoffs — a week after blasting the mighty Eagles (on Monday Night Football). The loss to Detroit was a one-score game. (Full disclosure: Joe did not predict a Bucs win.)
Joe can understand if the Bucs surprised people by beating the Lions in Week 2, but that says more about the people floored by the Bucs win. When a team from the lil’ ol’ (NFC) South does well, that’s what happens. The whole division is off the radar for too many people.
Unless the NFL ditches divisional play or in some unforeseen division shakeup the Bucs are placed in the NFC East or return to their roots in the same division as the Bears, Packers, Lions and Vikings, that’s the way it’s going to be.
Howard Cosell's "Halftime Highlights"
From ABC's Monday Night Football
48 years ago tonight,
December 6, 1976#Oilers at #Browns#Bears at #Seahawks #Falcons at #Rams#Colts at #Cardinals#Chiefs at #Broncos#49ers at #Chargers#Bills at #Dolphinspic.twitter.com/cEqSuYIxko— Kevin Gallagher (@KevG163) December 7, 2024
May 30th, 2025 at 12:07 am
Most watchable? Anything in Detroit is normally pretty boring, and while I loved the win in Detroit last year, I wouldn’t label it the most watchable.
This year, looking at the schedule, two games stand out,
Week 4 vs the Eagles – the Bucs have manhandled the Eagles, for the most part, for years now, and we should see a hot crowd on a hot afternoon. Can the Bucs again beat the crap out of the Eagles? That’s a pretty watchable story line.
…the other game…
Week 11 @Buffalo – historically speaking, the Bucs have had a lot of success against Buffalo, going 8-5 vs them all-time. Additionally, when the Bills are at their best, the Bucs tend to beat them. No idea why, but it is what it is. However, most of those wins have come in Tampa, so that’s worth keeping in mind. Still, the games vs Buffalo tend to be close and fun games to watch.
May 30th, 2025 at 12:32 am
Cosell was a pompous ass, and what people wanted to see, as much as the game itself, was Dandy Don Meredith exposing Howard for the buffoon that he was, and he did exactly that on a regular basis. Mohammad Ali and boxing was a better fit for Cosell. Meredith was the big draw on Monday Night Football. Women loved him, and guys respected him. He wasn’t mean to Howard, but he always got the best of him. One thing I will say for Howard, he always took it well.
May 30th, 2025 at 12:59 am
Wow! What a blast from the past for us seasoned ones. Regardless of opinion Cosell was iconic. So cool to see former University of Tampa’s Freddie Solomon stealing the show! What a talent he was. I was fortunate to see him as UT’s quarterback back in the big Sombrero in his glory working his magic as I am sure many here will chime in here as they did as well. Freddie was a generational talent that brought the fans out of their seats when he had the ball in his hands. Thanks Joe! You rock!
May 30th, 2025 at 12:59 am
It’s not that I exactly disagree factually with 1sparkybuc, I just have a different appreciation for the facts.
Cosell knew that his job was to entertain and excite first, and enlighten and inform second. It often seemed like he covered every sport known to human kind. He was sometimes very well prepared, but he kept the air live and energized even when he was in deep and couldn’t buy a clue.
To borrow from Galaxy Quest, “Never give up! Never surrender!“. In Howard’s case, that could translate to, “Never shut up!”
He definitely worked hard at his shtick. And, a wee bit of imbibed lubrication always seemed to keep the jaw jawing for one more segment.
Not everyone’ cup of tea; not always mine. But, I think that more people tuned in than tuned out because of him.
May 30th, 2025 at 1:06 am
Personally, Joe could not stand Don Meredith. That fake cowpoke schtick and his singing in the fourth quarter and always drooling over the Cowboys made Joe want to throw a bottle of Coke at the TV (this was before Joe was legally old enough to drink adult beverages).
Loved Cosell.
(Joe’s old man hated Cosell so much he would turn the sound down on the TV and have Jack Buck and Hank Stram on the radio broadcast in the living room. Joe wanted to hear Cosell but at least Joe was spared Meredith.)
May 30th, 2025 at 1:13 am
Cosell was a superb boxing announcer. Probably his best work.
May 30th, 2025 at 3:04 am
That video clip was certainly fun. Wow! A lot of memories evoked. Thanks Joe!
Re most watchable games. I suspect all Bucs games this year will fall into that cstegory.
May 30th, 2025 at 3:40 am
Alot of people didn’t appreciate Howard Cosell but how could they not? He was simply “telling it like it is”.
May 30th, 2025 at 4:24 am
Wow, memories! I grew up in a sports household and I can remember my parents loving the collaboration between Gifford, Cosell, and Meredith. They had fun with it all. Definitely a different time.
Agree, Cosell was a great fit with boxing.
May 30th, 2025 at 5:34 am
wow those highlights really bring me back to some of my earliest memories of watching football…
before i jumped the buccaneer bandwagon in 1979, and there was no looking back…
oh that coward blowsell…with gifford and meredith…
what a ridiculous trifecta to watch as a young child…
at the time i considered gifford the only sane one of the group lol
May 30th, 2025 at 6:15 am
You could always count on the Bucs getting a 3 second mention by Cosell on MNF if they won the day before. 😆
May 30th, 2025 at 6:42 am
Hart to Metcalf score! Go Big Red! Cardiac Cards were always chasing a playoff spot late…
May 30th, 2025 at 7:15 am
The Bucs most watchable game was week 16 (Monday Night Football) of the 2000 season versus the Rams. Spoiler alert: The Good Guys win 38-35, but I’ve never had more fun watching a Bucs regular season game in my life. It was magic. I still watch it on Youtube every year or so.
May 30th, 2025 at 7:21 am
Maybe I am a bit …slow, but most watchable? Don’t think I get the term or maybe I never have seen a Bucs game that did not have my full attention. Yes even in back in the old 0-26 days.
Go Bucs!
May 30th, 2025 at 7:23 am
There was an early 1980s Bucs night game that Cosell was announcing at Tampa. At one point in the game, the camera pans to the crowd where someone has a giant BUCS sign. As soon as the camera is on the sign, they turn the sign around and it says “Howard Sucks.” And for a very brief time, the announcers in the booth went quiet.
May 30th, 2025 at 7:59 am
I got to stay up Monday nights until the halftime highlights, then bedtime. Best part of my week!
Payton, OJ, Fouts, Hart and Metcalf … and then the Ford Pinto owning the Toyota and Datsun! Thanks Joe!
Cosell came off as pompous to some but was a great straight man with Meredith and of course Ali.
May 30th, 2025 at 8:01 am
My vote is for the 2002 season NFC title game vs the Eagles in their house.
After years of watching them smack us around we finally broke through.
Rondé running back the pick 6 was glorious and still gives me chills.
Both SB wins were just as special. But if I had to pick one game that is it.
May 30th, 2025 at 8:10 am
Detroit is ripe for a setback.
May 30th, 2025 at 8:16 am
Howard’s down fall….. Monday night football commenting on Art Monk, look at that little monkey run. Then a few plays later he had to start justifying that he was not a racists.
To be fair to Howard, he said this a few times on air, even about white players, so I do not believe it was malicious.
May 30th, 2025 at 8:21 am
What about Frank Gifford? The forgotten one outlasted them all and did Monday Night Football for almost 30 years.
May 30th, 2025 at 9:12 am
“Films from tonight’s game should be taken to schools all across the country as an example of a study in futility.”
That would be the Ravens/Bucs game in 2024.
After cutting the game to two TD’s w/ 2 point conversions (after a rare Jackson fumble), Ravens drove the ball at will 70 yards for a TD taking off 5 minutes of clock. Bucs down 3 Scores Again.
With 6 minutes left on the clock nothing of value to the team should have been on that field. Commander loss in the wild Card round came from that one collective bonehead decision. Team had nothing to win and everything to lose.
“I’m telling it like it is.”
May 30th, 2025 at 9:16 am
First NFL game I ever attended was at Soldier Field Bears hosting the Vikings on MNF in October of 1972. The Monsters of the Midway kicked a late field goal on that cold, wet night and my dad and twin brother and I celebrated all the way to the parking lot. Of course the inebriated Vikings fan who opened his coat and exposed what looked like a.45 and offered to shoot dad kind of muted our party. Great times though I can tell you that!
May 30th, 2025 at 10:01 am
I’m sure like a lot of others here.. the big reason to watch MNF was to see if the Bucs would FINALLY be on halftime highlights.
Those were rare occasions .
May 30th, 2025 at 12:29 pm
BakerFan – it wasn’t Art Monk. It was Alvin Garrett, when Cosell made that comment.
May 30th, 2025 at 2:26 pm
Anyone else remember the MNF game with no sound?
May 30th, 2025 at 3:08 pm
Remember a Saturday afternoon game with no announcers. Think the Jets were involved. Only sounds were the stadium PA announcer.
May 30th, 2025 at 4:06 pm
1sparkybuc Says:
May 30th, 2025 at 12:32 am
Cosell was a pompous ass, and what people wanted to see, as much as the game itself, was Dandy Don Meredith exposing Howard for the buffoon that he was
————
My God, what an awful take. You sir, are the very definition of a dullard.
May 30th, 2025 at 6:26 pm
Joe says:
That’s it. I remember it as MNF, but sometimes the memory fails after 45 years…
May 30th, 2025 at 7:38 pm
i gotta admit…listening to gruden a few years ago with tirico and jaworski was a crazy mix…
big gru napoleon complexed those 2 to death for like 2 years straight until they junked the trio…
i literally thought jaws would swing on him at some points
May 30th, 2025 at 9:48 pm
1sparkybuc Says:
May 30th, 2025 at 12:32 am
Cosell was a pompous ass, and what people wanted to see, as much as the game itself, was Dandy Don Meredith exposing Howard for the buffoon that he was
————
I was around during that time and from what I remember Cosell was pretty much disliked by (most) everyone. I have no idea what Joe is talking about with regard to his generational divide thingy. Never seen anything like that. Memories have a way of creating a luster that in reality never exsisted. Regardless, Cosell was a pompous ass-pure and simple- absolutely no doubt whatsoever about that. In fact that was a common understanding. That was a part of what made the image of Cosell. He was not liked by many but no doubt he had viewership. Indeed many people did tune in to hear Meredith take his little jabs at Cosell.