He finished high on the NFL leaderboards for the 1984 season in attempts (fourth), completions (fourth), passing yards (seventh), touchdown passes (ninth) and passing yards per game (eighth). The Bucs earned their first win of the season with DeBerg coming off the bench, a 21–17 victory against Detroit on September 16 in which he completed 18 of 27 passes (66.7 percent) for 195 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. It was one of four games that season in which DeBerg's quarterback rating topped 100; the other three were October 7 against Minnesota, October 14 against Detroit, and December 16 against the New York Jets.