The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have a new starting quarterback in 2023. Unless they re-sign Jameis Winston or Mike Glennon – seems unlikely, to say the least – or coax Ryan Fitzpatrick out of his well-deserved retirement, it will be a quarterback who has never started for the franchise before.
And hey! That’s worked out in the past. It really has. The Buccaneers are moving on to a new man under center because Tom Brady has chosen early retirement at the tender age of 45, but Brady himself was once a first-time Buccaneers starter and that went pretty well, if I recall correctly.
You can find other examples of this working out around the league from the past few seasons, if you’re willing to be a little loose with the definition of “debut starter.” Geno Smith had filled in for Seattle’s Russell Wilson for three games in 2021 but was an opening day starter for the Seahawks for the first time this year and helped get his team to the playoffs while winning Comeback Player of the Year honors. Matthew Stafford led the Rams to a championship in his debut with the Rams in 2021. Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts started the last four games of 2020 but was an opening day starter for the first time in 2021 and brought his team to the postseason (and a swift exit against the Buccaneers, but 2022 went even better).
And so on. So I thought I’d look at debut quarterback seasons in Buccaneers history and identify the five best. To widen the pool of candidates a bit, this was my criteria: They had to start on opening day for the first time as a Buccaneer and they had to go on to start at least 10 games that season. So that works for, say, Shaun King, who had a memorable late season run as a rookie in 1999 but was a Week One starter for the first time in 2020. It doesn’t work for FitzMagic, who started the first four games of 2018 while Winston was serving a suspension but only opened seven games overall.
There are 13 quarterbacks who fit that set of criteria in Buccaneers history, beginning with Doug Williams in 1978 and ending – so far – with Brady in 2020. I think the following were the five most successful of those 13 campaigns, in reverse order:
After King bought himself a full season as the starter in 2000 after his impressive work at the end of 1999, the Buccaneers decided to go the veteran route in 2001 and signed Johnson away from Washington as a free agent. Johnson threw for 3,406 yards and completed 60.8% of his passes, though the Bucs’ run-heavy approach around…
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