Todd Bowles Is A Good Coach And I Don't Care Who Knows It

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The Buccaneers season came to a close a few hours ago and I'm still stewing in defeat. I've had some time to process, got destroyed on The Shred Line,

and watched the team press conferences. I'm seeing some Bucs fans say they want Todd Bowles out as Head Coach, which is actually a crazy statement. 

The reason for this lunacy is we do have a hot HC candidate. Our current Offensive Coordinator Liam Coen. He drastically improved the running game which was the wart of our offense for years. We lost Offensive Coordinator Dave Canales to the Panthers Head Coach opening last season and some Bucs fans are afraid that could happen again. 

I like Coen a lot. I think he has a bright future. But this was his first season calling plays and I would be surprised if some of the sizzle doesn't cool off a bit after putting up 20 points with some critical mistakes on offense to an average at best Washington Commanders defense. In fact, I think the best thing that could come out of this loss is that Coen stays. He is a very good OC and may make a good Head Coach one day.

That being said, his ascension shouldn't come at the expense of Todd Bowles, a HC that has a proven track record of success. He was hired very late in the process in 2022 when Bruce Arians somewhat abruptly stepped down leaving Bowles to have the job. That year was horrible with an 8-9 finish that concluded with a blowout to the Cowboys on their own field. There were many reasons for that, one of which was certainly a lot of what Tom Brady was dealing with off the field. But Bowles certainly doesn't get high marks for that season.

But since then, he's been fantastic. Brady obviously retired after the 2022 season and the Bucs were left with $81.5 million dollars in dead cap space as they chose to wisely eat it all at once. Not only did the Bucs not fail, they won the division again and even beat Jalen Hurts and the Eagles in the playoffs. They then went to Detroit where they lost by eight points in a feisty Divisional game. 

They certainly left some good building blocks for this season, but they were still +320 to win the division in the pre-season. With a new Offense and some uncertainty at some key positions, there were mixed feelings about my Bucs heading into the season. But what does Todd Bowles do? Leads them to a 10-7 record to win the division again. And after a Week 11 bye, including tonight's game against Washington, holds teams to 17.9 points/game in the final eight games. 

Should they have won tonight vs. Washington? Arguably. They were two pretty evenly matched teams and the Bucs made a critical mistake on the jet sweep fumble. But by no means should that cost a good coach his job. I saw some good things from Todd Bowles tonight. The first being that this team constantly plays for him. I've been around long enough to remember Tony Dungy, Raheem Morris, Greg Schiano, Lovie Smith, and Dirk Koetter. I've seen teams just flat out tune out a Coach and not play for them. That isn't the case for Bowles and I love that.

He also showed some growth today especially. I thought his clock management was much better. In the 1st half calling his 2nd timeout with :17 seconds left at the 12 yard line instead of :33 seconds left like when he did in Kansas City earlier this season. I thought that showed growth. I also liked his logic on why he waited to call timeout late. It was 2nd & 1 and he wanted to see how the offense was going to come out. It was basically call it then and not have one for 3rd down, so I like his logic. He also said if they didn't flub that snap on 3rd & 1 when Graham Barton snapped it early when trying to draw the Commanders offsides that he would've considered going for it on 4th & 1, down by three with five minutes left. That is a HYPER aggressive call that would've been applauded by all the advanced analytics crowd. All this shows me he's willing to learn and change with clock management and aggressive calls, so I love that.

And finally, he's just a good coach. General Manager Jason Licht and team deserve a ton of credit for drafting well. But take a look at Antoine Winfield Jr., Jamel Dean, Zyon McCollum, Tykee Smith, Yaya Diaby, Jalen McMillan, Luke Goedeke, Cody Mauch, Cade Otton, and Bucky Irving. All guys that weren't 1st round picks that are developing nicely under Todd Bowles and staff. So not only are we picking the right guys, but they're getting developed! 

I'm a Todd Bowles guy and I think you should be too!

Check out tonight's full Shred Line to hear what other teams fans think of their Coaches and decision making from the weekend: