It sounds like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are giving head coach Todd Bowles a pass for all that went wrong during the 2022 season.
“He started the season late,” Buccaneers co-owner Joel Glazer said of Bowles during a discussion with the JoeBucsFan website. “Usually, a coach gets hired earlier in the hiring cycle, so I think Todd was at a disadvantage. But I think there was some good last season, there were positives. Collectively, everybody would have liked a better end result but overall I think he handled the team well. Our defense played well and Todd always has the defense ready to go.”
It was learned on March 30, 2022, that then-Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians was stepping down from his post to become a senior advisor with the organization. Bowles subsequently was promoted from defensive coordinator to Arians’ old gig.
17 days before that news broke, quarterback Tom Brady announced he was un-retiring and returning to the Buccaneers for another season. Even with Brady under center, the Tampa Bay offense failed to click as it did during the 2020 and 2021 campaigns.
According to ESPN, Tampa Bay ended the 2022 regular season last in the league with an average of 76.9 rushing yards per game and 25th in scoring with an average of 18.4 points per contest.
The Buccaneers went 8-9 but nevertheless won the division title and earned a home playoff game. They were thrashed by the Dallas Cowboys 31-14 in the tournament’s wild-card round in January.
“The offense, I know everybody was frustrated,” Glazer added during his comments. “It was a lot of unique circumstances last year but overall we’re pleased with how Todd handled the season.”
Those “unique circumstances” involved Brady taking an 11-day break away from the Buccaneers during the preseason in August as he dealt with matters presumably related to his divorce from Gisele Bündchen. Brady’s off-the-field issues more likely than not impacted him throughout the season and also may have produced a setback or two that Bowles couldn’t have prepared to handle last March.
Brady has now retired a second time and “for good,” while the Buccaneers are hoping that Baker Mayfield will prevent the franchise from needing to embrace a full rebuild as soon as this coming fall. It sounds like Bowles’ seat isn’t too hot at the moment, but history shows that could change if Tampa Bay is essentially out of the playoff hunt by Thanksgiving.
