The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will play their 50th season in 2025, extending a rich history that includes two Super Bowl championships, multiple figures inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and countless moments that live on forever in the memory of Buccaneers fans. While the 50th season gives the Buccaneers organization and its fans an opportunity to celebrate all of its significant achievements of the past, it is also an optimistic look forward at what is yet to come for the NFL's 27th franchise.
As the Buccaneers continue to chase championships and set new team records, it will find that the bar has been set very high in many categories. As we prepare for the arrival of Tampa Bay's 50th season, we will be looking at some of the most impressive team and individual achievements over the first 49 years. Today, we remember the best rushing games ever produced by Buccaneer backs.
Unlike with our top five passing games, where it was necessary to combine some statistical achievements – passer rating, yards, TDs – to decided on a top five, this one is a lot more straightforward. We're taking this category at face value: The top rushing games in franchise annals are the ones with the most rushing yards. Only four times in the last 49 years has a Tampa Bay running back produced 200 or more rushing yards in a game, and only six times has one gone for 175-plus. All six are represented below as we have a tie for the final spot.
There have been many, many significant performances by running backs in team history, perhaps most memorably the 38-carry, 142-yard outing by Ricky Bell against Philadelphia in 1979 in the first playoff game ever for the organization. They all deserve recognition. Below are the six games with the most rushing yards.
The Top Five Rushing Games in Buccaneers History
- Doug Martin, 251 yards, at Oakland, Nov. 4, 2012
This would have been the easy choice for the top rushing performance no matter how you defined it. Given the four touchdowns that punctuated this incredible rookie outing, and the fact that 251 yards remains the franchise record for a single game, it is well ahead of the rest of the pack.
The Buccaneers traded up into the bottom of the first round in 2012 to nab Martin, the Boise State star, and he responded with one of the best rookie seasons at any position in team annals. His 1,454 rushing yards on the season remain the second most in Bucs history and just 90 behind James Wilder's long-standing record from 1984. Martin's biggest day by far during that Pro Bowl rookie campaign was the one where he got to go back to his hometown of Oakland.
It wasn't immediately apparent that this was going to be a record-setting day. Martin only had 31 yards on eight carries in the first half, none longer than 13. But he spent the second half ripping off one huge open-field jaunt after another, scoring on runs of 45, 67 and 70 yards (with a one-yard TD sprinkled in in the fourth quarter for good measure). He ran for 220 yards after the intermission and finished with an average of 10 yards per carry on his 25 totes.
- Doug Martin, 235 yards, at Philadelphia, Nov. 22, 2015
Martin himself is the only Bucs back to get close to his 251-yard game since it occurred, with his 235 yards in a road dismantling of the Eagles getting within 16. This one, however did not include any trips to the end zone. His 84-yard run in the second quarter ended at the Philadelphia one-yard line and was at the time the longest rush in franchise history (more on that below). It is still second on the list and perhaps most notably the longest run and second-longest play from scrimmage in Bucs history that was not a touchdown.
This was the opposite of Martin's Oakland game, with the majority of the fireworks coming in the first half. In addition to the 84-yarder he had another breakaway for 58 yards in the first quarter and went into the intermission with 177 yards on 12 carries, averaging 14.8 a pop. That helped the Bucs build a 28-14 lead on the road at halftime, which eventually swelled to a 45-17 final. Martin ended up with those 235 yards on 27 carries for an average of 8.7 per tote. As a team, the Buccaneers ran for 283 yards, which remains a franchise single-game record.
- James Wilder, 219 yards, at Minnesota, Nov. 6, 1983
Wilder is the Buccaneers' all-time leader in rushing yards (5,957) and, as noted above, he still holds the team's single-season record too, with 1,544 in 1984. His 1,300-yard follow-up in 1985 is now fourth on the list with Martin interjecting his 2012 and 2015 campaigns in between. However, Wilder's single biggest rushing performance didn't occur during either of those seasons; rather, he did it in 1983 and that one game represented more than a third of his 640 yards on the year.
If we were considering other factors in this ranking, such as game situations and outcomes, this big day for Wilder might move up a spot on the list. Wilder's 239 yards from scrimmage (he also had five catches for 20 yards) accounted for 84.5% of the Buccaneers' gross yards in a game that they barely escaped with a 17-12 victory. Wilder ran the ball 31 times and still averaged 7.1 yards per carry, and his career-best 75-yard touchdown run in the third quarter gave the Bucs their first lead of the day. When the Vikings failed on a fourth down at the Buccaneers' 18 with 2:04 left in regulation, Wilder was predictably handed the ball on the next five plays and he produced 53 yards to run out the clock.
- Warrick Dunn, 210 yards, vs. Dallas, Dec. 3, 2000
This is the first game on the list that the Buccaneers' home crowd got to experience up close. Dunn didn't waste much time suggesting a big day was on tap, taking his very first carry over left tackle and breaking free for a 70-yard touchdown. He would later add runs of 34 and 23 yards on his way to what at the time was just the second 200-yard rushing performance in team history.
The Bucs ran away to a 20-0 lead over the Cowboys and were never in danger of losing but Dunn still punctuated his outing with a second touchdown on a four-yard run in the fourth quarter. In all, he carried the ball 22 times for those 210 yards, finishing with an average of 9.5 yards per tote. He and Martin are the only two players in Bucs history to average 9.5 yards per carry or better in a game in which they logged at least 20 runs.
5t. Ronald Jones, 192 yards, at Carolina, Nov. 15, 2020
This performance is primarily remembered for one (really) big play. After taking a 20-17 lead on a Ryan Succop field goal early in the third quarter, the Bucs forced a punt but Carolina was able to down it at Tampa Bay's two-yard line. Any Panthers momentum that play might have built was swept away in an instant…or 11.9 seconds, which is how long it took from when Jones took the handoff from Tom Brady to when he crossed the goal line at the other end of the field.
That 98-yard touchdown run was easily the longest run in franchise history, besting Martin's non-scoring 84-yarder in Philly noted above, and is also the longest play from scrimmage of any type. It equals Shelton Quarles' 98-yard pick-six against Green Bay in 2001 as the Bucs' longest touchdowns of any variety.
Jones didn't rest on just that one carry, though. He finished with 23 runs for 192 yards, averaging 8.3 yards per handoff. Those 23 carries tied for the most he had in any game in his five-year NFL career, and his exploits on the day helped the Bucs, amazingly, to score on nine straight possessions. That's the only time that has happened in team history.
5t. Errict Rhett, 192 yards, vs. Washington, Dec. 4, 1994
Rhett, a second-round draft pick in 1994, rushed for 1,011 yards as a rookie, but he only had 304 yards through the first nine games. He went ballistic down the stretch, with four 100-yard performances in his last seven outings, topped by this big day at home against Washington.
Sam Wyche and the Buccaneers rode Rhett hard throughout the game, eventually giving him 40 handoffs, still the second most ever for a Tampa Bay back in a single non-overtime game after a 42-carry game by Wilder against Pittsburgh in 1983. Rhett had 22 carries for 96 yards and a touchdown in the first half and 18 carries for 96 yards in the second half. In the end, he had averaged 4.8 yards per carry and gotten to what at the time was the second-highest single-game total in Bucs history despite no carry longer than 23 yards.
Rhett did save that long carry for last, as the Bucs were rallying in the game's final three minutes, down a point. His 23-yard cutback run got the ball to the Washington 12 with a minute to play and quarterback Craig Erickson ran it in three plays later from the one-yard line for a 26-21 Bucs victory.
