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Buccaneers Announce 'Creamsicle' Game for 2025
Buccaneers Announce 'Creamsicle' Game for 2025 originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Like it or not, and there are many who don't, Bucco Bruce is returning in 2025.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced on Tuesday that they'll bring back the Creamsicle uniforms in the Week 15 matchup next season against the division rival Atlanta Falcons at Raymond James Stadium.
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The team last wore the Bucco Bruce helmet and Creamsicle jerseys against the Falcons last season in a 31-26 defeat. Some fans consider the uniforms to be bad luck, most associated with the early days of the franchise that saw little success.
Tampa Bay wore the colors from the franchise's inception in 1976 through the 1996 season, then first wore them as an alternate look in 2009.
From 1976-1996, the team posted a 100-223-1 record and just three winning seasons before making the switch to "Pewter Power" for the 1997 season.
In 1979, Tampa Bay went 10-6 en route to a 9-0 NFC Championship game loss to the Los Angeles Rams. In 1981, they went 9-7 and lost 38-0 to the Dallas Cowboys in the Divisional Round, and then 5-4 in the strike-shortened season of 1982 before they lost to Dallas 30-17 in the Wild Card round.
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That's it. Three. Three winning seasons while wearing Bucco Bruce and the Creamsicles, and no winning season or postseason appearances from 1982 until 1997 after the team changed looks.
It's no wonder fans and some media believe the bad luck takes, as the evidence is almost overwhelming.
Buccaneers insider, JP Peterson of the JP Peterson Show on Fan Stream Sports - Tampa Bay is one that believes in the bad luck, and questions why those colors keep coming back.
'Why are the Bucs still playing in these uniforms? They are gorgeous to wear to bars, but the Bucs are 1-6 in the Creamsicle throwback games and went 0-26 to start the franchise and then 14 straight years without making the playoffs," Peterson said. "And as soon as they switched to the 'Pewter and Red', we went to the playoffs four of the next six years! You can't win in Creamsicles, and this is a key divisional game! This is not an opinion, it's a demonstrable fact!"
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Tampa Bay's in-game sideline reporter, T.J. Rives, has a different view of the Creamsicles.
"As someone who grew up watching the Bucs as a teenager in the 1980s in the orange, I always love the nostalgia of them putting it back on," Rives told us.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 24, 2025, where it first appeared.
