Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans finally have a uniform to be proud of

The new Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniforms are here and they’re better than we could have hoped for. 

For the fourth time in team history, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have changed up their look. While not nearly as drastic as the other three incarnations, the Bucs have literally tailormade what they think will be a championship look by the end of the season.

While the Super Bowl is still a pipe dream for fans who have suffered through 17 years of pain, things are starting to look up. Tom Brady, perhaps the greatest quarterback to ever play the game, chose to take his talents to the other Bay area and the team has aspirations to not only remind everyone that there’s a professional football team in Tampa but make everyone sorry they ever forgot.

Reintroducing themselves with new uniforms is only the beginning.

A classic Buccaneers uniform look returns

For fans hoping that the new uniforms would be a drastic change from the alarm clock uniforms, there might be some disappointment. But anything that wasn’t the much-maligned alarm clock jerseys would have been welcomed with open arms, and what we were given was a blast from the past.

No, it’s not the classic creamsicles, rather it’s a remixed version of a uniform that should have never gone away. The creamsicles are vintage, the pewter and red look from the late-90s/00s is classic.

https://twitter.com/Buccaneers/status/1247569827411243011

These new uniforms play on a return to glory. Perhaps the grandest era in Buccaneers football was the Tony Dungy, Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks teams that asserted themselves as one of the fiercest forces in football history. The Buccaneers Super Bowl in 2002 was without a doubt the peak of the franchise’s existence and it was wearing those pewter and red colors that the team reached the promised land.

It’s no secret that the Bucs expect to win a Super Bowl with Brady, and not so subtly returning to their Super Bowl-era look is a shot across the bow.

It’s establishing a heritage for Buccaneers fans

There is, of course, the point to be made that these uniforms never should have changed in the first place. There was nothing wrong with the Bucs look throughout the 2000s other than the product wearing the uniforms.

Disclosure: I’m a life-long Buccaneers fan. I’m also a Timberwolves fan. I also grew up on the Star Wars prequels. All three of those things tie together here, I promise. Despite all the losing combined between those three things, the most painful thing is the utter lack of history. Or the acknowledgment of history.

Outside of Kevin Garnett, the Timberwolves have no real basketball history. Any history that does exist is invented by fans to numb us from the fact that there’s no culture. Alexy Shved’s hair and Jimmy Butler’s practice jersey being important parts of our lore says it all.

As far as the prequels were concerned, they’re not by any means good but the sequel trilogy went out of its way to pretend like they never happened.

The Buccaneers have always felt the most painful because they were the only one of those three things to succeed. But the Bucs have managed to be so bad over the last 18-years that folks forget the team ever won a Super Bowl.

These uniforms change that, in a way. They represent an establishment of history and an acknowledgment of past, present, and future.

For reasons already mentioned, the return to the pewter look is a reminder that this team used to be a brute force that announced itself like a fleet of Amtraks. It’s a reminder that John Madden and Pat Summerall were in the booth for late afternoon clashes with Brett Favre. It’s a reminder that this team used to matter in ways it’s starting to matter again.

The logo is the only thing that worked from the “Alarm Clock Era”, which was one of the biggest fashion blunders this side of socks-with-sandals. The team was awful too, failing to live up to the promise of taking a franchise quarterback with the No. 1 pick in the draft and making something of themself. It’s an era that is easily forgettable but keeping the logo which is an acknowledgment of history. We’re not pretending like the alarm clock uniforms didn’t happen, nor are we expecting them to age with scars-are-cool chic that the creamsicles did — It’s just a part of our heritage as fans.

That’s right, we have a heritage as fans. While people might have forgotten about the Super Bowl — or the team in general — fans have a shared experience with this team, both good and bad. The last 20-ish years since the team was last nationally relevant haven’t been listless, or all for naught.

The uniforms are a reminder of what we as fans have lived through, the joys and pains we experienced, and the pride in knowing there’s a future worth investing ourselves in.

Pride in being a Buccaneers fan, of wearing those colors and repping our team. A reminder that for all the jokes about half-full stadiums and misguided “Youngry” swagger, Bucs fans have a shared history together, and there indeed is light at the end of the tunnel.