Talk:1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 05:51, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Since Wizardman is a better reviewer than I am, and since this is my fifth GA review in the last two weeks, and since this is a rather large article, I'm not planning to fine-tooth every word and phrase. We'll see how it goes, but I'm going to base my evaluation on Wizardman's, and the progress since then. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 08:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

The article was pretty long, and it got maybe 50% longer after I got done with Wizardman's suggestions. But it's an NFL team's inaugural season, as well as a record-setting winless season, so it's very significant. This will help you check references: most or all of the newspaper references will be available at news.google.com, just enter the article title into an Advanced Archive Search and you should have little trouble finding the original article. GuySperanza (talk) 03:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting to see what you mean. One of Wizardman's critiques was that the lead was short – it seems long to me now.

The tone was set for the season as the team got lost in the Houston Astrodome when leaving the locker room to take the field for their opening game. They spent 20 minutes trying to find their way out, and barely made it to the field in time for the opening kickoff Seems like too much detail for the lead. Certainly, this would be suitable for the section on that particular game.

The team did not score a touchdown until cornerback Danny Reece returned a fumble 44 yards in the fourth game. Running back Louis Carter threw their first touchdown pass in an "Expansion Bowl" loss to the Seattle Seahawks The first paragraph of the lead already refers to this, without giving these details (which I don't think are necessary in the lead).

in which the two teams combined for 310 yards in penalties Another detail which seems suitable below, but sounds a bit much up top.

I really would advise against having quotations in the lead. I think there might even be a cofidied guideline against that.

Here's how I might revise the lead. The first paragraph is good as is. What do you think of this for the rest:

The expansion draft was largely made up of aging veterans, giving the Buccaneers little basis for success. They were last in the league in points scored, touchdowns, and rushing touchdowns.[2] They were outscored 412–125, allowed 6.7 yards per play, and allowed an average of 183 rushing yards per game.[3] After a 19-point 4th-quarter performance brought them within striking distance of a victory in week 9 against the Kansas City Chiefs, they were blown out of every game the rest of the season.

By the time the season ended, only four starters from the first game were still on the roster, and 17 players were on injured reserve. The injury problems were at least partly the result of the teams having only been given hours to prepare for the expansion draft, with no medical information provided on the players.[5] The defense was hit particularly hard by injuries. Having been on the field for upward of 90 plays per game, they played the equivalent of two seasons in one.[6][7]

The 2008 NFL Network program "10 Worst Teams of All Time" (produced prior to the 2008 Detroit Lions season) recognized the 1976 Buccaneers as the worst NFL team ever. Subsequent expansion teams were given a more generous allotment of draft picks and expansion draft opportunities, in part to avoid a repeat of the Buccaneers' difficulties.[8]

Four shortish paragraphs, in the lead anyway, give a better aesthetic a blob of text. I'd also remove the sentence about conflicts between McKay and Steve Spurrier, as it doesn't seem to be addressed later in the article (certainly not to the depth that a mention in the lead would seem to merit). Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 07:56, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying about the aesthetic, but I don't feel comfortable with a five-paragraph lead. The original lead, the one that Wizardman felt was too short, is the first paragraph. The second paragraph was a "Season Overview" section. I looked at the article, and saw that there was a lead, a "Season Overview", and a "Regular Season" section. This effectively made three season overviews, so I eliminated the "Season Overview" by rolling the entire thing into the lead. By your suggestions, it might be better to add a short second paragraph to the lead, and reinstate the "Season Overview". I like your idea of breaking it up into the shorter paragraphs, but I'm hesitant to remove too much material from that section. It functions as a summation of What Went Wrong, and there's not another section that does that. Come to think of it, this really is very different from what's in the "Regular Season" section. I'd prefer to do something with restructuring the article rather than cutting that section up too much, but I don't have many good ideas at this second. Is "brain-deadness" a word? I'll look at this more tomorrow. GuySperanza (talk) 04:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, my idea is four paragraphs for the lead, not five. The first paragraph as it currently is in the article, plus the three in italics above. I just think the current lead gives disproportionate detail to what's in the article. If you want to reinstate it as a separate section or add to an existent one, that would be fine. Understand, the lead (and the quotes) are really the only problems I have with this article. Once it's ironed out, it'll be an easy GA pass. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 05:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

My mistake, I saw your three paragraphs as four. I'm going to go for a lead of two paragraphs balanced in size, and I've got some time today to figure out how to restructure this. I'll do a local save first, so I can roll it back if you don't like the changes I make. BTW, when you say that there might be a guideline against quotations in the lead, do you know where I can verify that? Not that I'm disputing, and I'm following your advice for this article, but I have other articles that have quotes in the lead, and I want to make sure that they're meeting the guidelines. GuySperanza (talk) 16:23, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Hmm. Call it a personal preference and nothing more, then, because WP:LEAD actually says the exact opposite of what I thought it did: Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although specific facts, such as birthdates, titles, or scientific designations will often appear in the lead only, as may certain quotations. If you'd like to reinsert them into the lead, go ahead. This article passes GA now. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 21:23, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I think it's ready, tell me what you think. GuySperanza (talk) 20:28, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

To what does McKay's only promise was that he would deliver a championship ahead of Pittsburgh's 41-year timetable. refer?

I'm not wild about the bulleted list of McKay's little malapropisms, but I'll defer to Wizardman's review and the fact that he didn't object to it. However, as Wizardman noted, all quotations need conspicuous citations. I have appended {{fact}} to those that lack them. I don't think the quotes from the assistant coach and from Ira Gordon are really applicable to that section (it is, after all, headed "McKay quotes"). Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 08:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

To what does McKay's only promise was that he would deliver a championship ahead of Pittsburgh's 41-year timetable. refer?

That was McKay's smartalecky way of saying that the Buccaneers wouldn't need 41 years to win their first NFL championship, like the Steelers did.

Then that needs to be explicitly said. It's meaningless as currently worded. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 02:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll deal with that tomorrow, when I'm not so tired. The source article breaks up McKay's words in such a way that they can't be presented as a direct quote, and it's difficult to paraphrase them without plagiarizing the article:

McKay promised Tampa Bay only that he would "beat Pittsburgh's timetable" in winning a first N.F.L. championship. "The Steelers did it in 41 years," he said.

I think I did the best I could with that. Do you have any suggestions? GuySperanza (talk) 03:49, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, what about now? GuySperanza (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

McKay had a reputation for accurate predictions, and that's another one he got right, although he wasn't around to see it happen. BTW, the McKay quotes are not malapropisms, which are misspoken words such as "misconscrewed". The idea behind including those is to reflect some of the circus-like atmosphere that is frequently attributed to this team, which is why I included the two miscellaneous quotes in that section. I think they convey that well and so belong in the article, but they don't fit well into another section, so I would have to cut them from the article if you object to them. There was one fact that Wizardman wanted included, with the idea that it might demonstrate the team's futility that season; by the same token, the lines from Gordon and Fryzell seem to reflect a mental state that doesn't quite click, and might say a lot about a winless team. I was careful, however, to exclude any of McKay's one-liners from USC or later Buccaneer seasons.

I disagree with you about the sentence about the conflicts between McKay and Spurrier. It seems to have had an impact on the team's offensive performance. It is referenced by a citation, which IIRC was a recent one. Press reports of the time seemed to downplay the problems, other than to mention that Spurrier was unhappy about being unable to call his own plays. The more recent reference was from a 30th anniverary retrospective article, written by a journalist who had covered the team in 1976. That he singled that fact out for mention in a very short article suggests that it was pretty significant, and it appears that the press was being "nice" by keeping these conficts under wraps. One might expect the press to want to dig for that kind of dirt, but that was a different day, and there's a clear pattern through at least the Bucs' first several seasons of the Bay Area press burying players' conflicts and personal issues. It's appropriate to mention in a section that's concentrating on the team's offensive woes, but I'll take a look at reorganizing that whole bit into a different section. GuySperanza (talk) 19:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no discussion of conflicts between McKay and Spurrier in the body of the article. Only The Buccaneers' 338 yards of offense, a great improvement over their previous two games, coincided with coach McKay's relenting to Steve Spurrier's demands that he be able to call his own plays. That's the only time McKay and Spurrier are referred to in the same sentence. So I'd hardly call say that merits being mentioned in the lead. Or that their conflicts marked the season. If that's actually verifiably true, though, then yes, it does need greater mention in the body of the article. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 02:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I have appended {{fact}} to all quotes lacking citations – they all need conspicuous citations. If they are cited by the citation that next appears in the article, then duplicate it. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 19:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. You may want to double-check, to make sure that I got them all. GuySperanza (talk) 03:32, 6 April 2010 (UTC)