Hot Seat
May 17th, 2023
Simmering seat?
Joe will state an ugly stat about the Bucs since Team Glazer acquired the team in 1995.
Only once has a Bucs coach survived two consecutive losing seasons. And that guy won Team Glazer a Super Bowl. His name is Chucky.
How aware are coaches of this? Well, consider former Bucs coach Dirk Koetter, after the Bucs finished the 2017 season with a 5-11 record, thanked Team Glazer for the “courage” to keep him aboard. That was Koetter’s first season with a losing record.
Perhaps aware of this history, Ryan Reynolds of The33rdTeam.com pieced together a list of NFL coaches on the hot seat. At No. 2 is Bowles.
The 2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers were an ugly 8-9 that won the NFC South by default in Todd Bowles’ first year as head coach. Now, the Buccaneers go from the great Tom Brady to some combination of Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask at quarterback. Bowles could get a pass this season due to that quarterback transition — regardless of how the team performs — but that’s far from a guarantee considering how rocky 2022 was in Tampa.
The Buccaneers open up with a difficult four-game stretch to start the season. They could easily go 1-3 entering their Week 5 bye. If the Buccaneers get off to a disastrous start, their early bye week presents an opportunity for a coaching change. Bowles is a contender to be the first coach fired.
“This Joe” will lay cash Bowles won’t be the first coach canned in-season. Why is that? Well, Team Glazer has never fired a coach until after a season. In fact, Joe could argue that sometimes Team Glazer has waited way too long after a season to make a change.
So those of you still peeved at Bowles for how the 2021 playoffs ended — and there are many — Bowles should be here through the 2023 season.
The slow-start case is compelling, however. If the Bucs start 1-3, does that jump-start Team Glazer to tell Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht to prep for a coaching search?
When the Bucs canned former commander Greg Schiano and hired lousy Lovie Smith in January of 2014, Joe heard that Team Glazer had a handshake agreement with Lovie in three months earlier.
So if you buy that Bowles’ seat is on fire, then you understand when Joe types that Bowles needs wins and likely isn’t overly concerned about the Bucs’ roster in 2024 or 2025.
May 17th, 2023 at 4:01 am
I’m buying what you’re selling, Joe. Who knows, maybe the Glazers truly believe him about last year and totally blame Lefty for the year and give him a mulligan and consist this season as year one. With that said…
Do the Glazers have faith that Canales can develop Trask, Baker or even a hotshot rookie, regardless of Bowles? I think that will play a huge role in whether he stays or goes, that and how the players perform throughout the season.
May 17th, 2023 at 5:34 am
The Bucs need to win in 2023 for Bowles to keep his job. In other news, water is wet.
May 17th, 2023 at 6:17 am
Lol , Joe in Michigan. Shocking !
May 17th, 2023 at 6:21 am
If Bowles has a losing season he should be fired. He has his hand picked staff
He got his draft picks.. no excuses this year.
May 17th, 2023 at 6:24 am
It will be a full fan revolt by week 8.
May 17th, 2023 at 6:41 am
This is why I don’t buy the “We’re in tank mode” talk. Bowles isn’t going to tank to draft a QB he won’t be around to coach.
May 17th, 2023 at 6:51 am
HC/DC Superbowles….get him out!
May 17th, 2023 at 6:51 am
Todd Bowels has never not been on the hot seat
May 17th, 2023 at 7:05 am
I accept the point that Bowles margin of error has decreased dramatically.
But IMHO he will be judged fairly by the Glazers. If the Bucs have a losing season it’s not an automatic ejection. It would depend on the reasons for the loss.
If BOTH QB’s go down early, Jensen reinjures his knee early, Devin White becomes a locker room cancer…just sayin’ there are some things beyond Bowles control and the Glazers will consider everything.
I think with what should be a vastly improved OL..helping the running game and also the QB’s, a talented duo of CB’s and all the speed added to the D through the draft…short of injuries I can’t imagine Bowles surviving a losing season.
May 17th, 2023 at 7:38 am
Bowles should never had been hired as Head Coach to begin with!!! That was a Bruce Arians legacy move that team Glazer caved too. Arians timed it perfectly by announcing he was stepping down after all the other coaching vacancies had been filled leaving the Glazer’s with very few options. I loved Arians as Head Coach but he sunk this organization by trying to keep all his guys in place. If they weren’t so screwed by their salary cap situation they would have cleaned house at the end of the season. Bowles is a dead man walking and will be gone at the end of this season.
May 17th, 2023 at 7:46 am
Bowles gimme minimum 6 wins anything less hes gone!
May 17th, 2023 at 8:08 am
BUCman is correct. Arians forced his people on the Glazers – what other option did they have when Arians announced his retirement? However, was this was the plan of succession from the beginning of BA coming to Tampa?
May 17th, 2023 at 8:17 am
Bowles will be gone! Hopefully sooner than later! He doesn’t act like a winning head coach. Bad game planning/ implementation of game plan, too much indecision, bad decisions when he does decide, no player motivation, bad game clock management, no energy, very little side line communication,ect,ect,ect.!!
Dave Canales acts like a winning coach!! I hope he gets results and replaces TB!!
May 17th, 2023 at 8:24 am
You know what coaches will be on the hot seat this year? The coaches who lose to the Bucs! Since every football expert, including my dead mother, believes the Bucs won’t win more than 7 games, the bar should be very low for Bowles.
May 17th, 2023 at 8:37 am
As much as I believe he is not the right coach, I hope and pray I am wrong
I see it the other way though, I think it’s a Raheem type year – we actually get off to a decent start but then the 8 game losing streak dashes dreams by mid November as we all just wait for the ac to fall
Likely to see:
Bad clock management
Trick plays at the absolute worst time
Trying not to score at end of half so we don’t have turnovers
Players that aren’t performing left on the field for 4-6 weeks too long before being replaced
Handcuffed OC not allowed to open up the passing game
Defense that consistently blows assignments and argues among each other on the field between plays
Just a repeat of his previous 5 tries at this….
May 17th, 2023 at 8:39 am
And 1 more item likely to see- the worst special teams units in the league
The STC is a JOKE!!!!!
May 17th, 2023 at 8:45 am
Voice, you mean” not so special teams”!
May 17th, 2023 at 9:04 am
Joe Swanson Says:
May 17th, 2023 at 7:46 am
Bowles gimme minimum 6 wins anything less hes gone!
^^^^^^^^
He needs to win more than that, IMHO.
May 17th, 2023 at 9:14 am
If the Bowles cleaner puts Mayfly in as starter, they will start 1-3. If Trask starts they will go 1-3.
The difference is in the upside of the QB. For Mayfly, it is what he is. For Trask it is time he needs to make the game slow down around him, instead of rushing past.
Whoever has the start when the bye rolls around will be benched. That could be the start of a dead Bowles cleaner walking.
May 17th, 2023 at 9:33 am
Winning that week one game in Minnesota will be pretty crucial.
Because with Chicago and Philly playing in Tampa and a game on the road in New Orleans the Bucs could be 0-4 before the week 5 bye week and that would probably spell doom for Todd Bowles…
If the Bucs win against the Vikings and Bears a 2-2 start wouldn’t be too bad for this team.
May 17th, 2023 at 9:43 am
SUPPORT FOR BOWLES
I thought they should have removed Bowles or Leftwhich last season. They retained Bowles, let him update his staff, and gave him pieces. If he can win, he deserves to stay. If he can’t, he deserves to go.
May 17th, 2023 at 9:45 am
The Bucs could have 900 less passing yards with Trask/Mayfield in 2023-
if they have 900 more rushing yards than last year- they will average 24 points/game.
That , and more speed on D seems to be the Canales/Bowles plan.
If it works, Bucs are a playoff team.
May 17th, 2023 at 10:09 am
never should have been hired
will get fired before the season is over
May 17th, 2023 at 10:48 am
What is happening and why, to my posts?
May 17th, 2023 at 11:15 am
I even think this could be a Lovie-Koetter situation. If Canales has that type of potential, I could see the Glazers not wanting to lose him.
May 17th, 2023 at 11:20 am
Either Antonio or Kaepernick gonna be their next coach.😀
May 17th, 2023 at 11:21 am
17-0 baby!!!!
May 17th, 2023 at 12:02 pm
What many seem to miss, including at least this Joe, is that it wasn’t the last season’s record or playoff loss that has many pissed that Bowles is still HC. It’s watching a year of him “leading” a team and organization that was completely rudderless, uninspired, mistake-filled, undisciplined, unimaginative, boring, and one that failed to execute throughout practically the entire season. Basically they matched the energy and passion Bowles fed them from the sideline. That has NOTHING to do with Bowles not having his hand picked staff as the apologists will have us believe. It’s simply a reflection of Bowles’ inability to be the #1 guy. He’s a Robin, not a Batman… which is fine as a good DC but not as HC.
May 17th, 2023 at 12:13 pm
Many seem to fail to account that this is going to be Bowles’ SIXTH year as a HC. He’s not new to this, and has consistently failed to get his teams playing winning, or even inspired football. Not many people can perform poorly for 5 years at their job and expect to keep it. While the Lions only won one more game than us & the Panthers one less (with an interim HC who took over mid-season), both those teams were playing much more entertaining, inspired football over the last half of the season with far less talented rosters. That’s the sign of good HC’s that know how to lead and energize a team of men. Bowles doesn’t appear to have that ability, would love for him to prove otherwise. Actually think Canales, and possibly Edwards, has much more leadership and HC potential than Bowles. Very possible one of them is the next man up.
May 17th, 2023 at 1:19 pm
The only thing I didn’t get was firing Leftwich… If your goal is to get the #1 pick in 2024, no duo gave you a better chance at doing than Bowles and Leftwich.
Maybe the Bucs were trying to make Arians mad so he’d stop hanging out around the team, since there was a possibility that he’d personally start doing Leftwich’s job in order to save him. By firing Leftwich, the Bucs mad Arians mad, and I doubt we see him around the team going forward, which was pretty much the only lifeline that Bowles had left from a total and complete disaster.
Also, just as a reminder, I wasn’t that down on Bowles last season – he earned my scorn during the year, in particular with that pitiful effort in Cleveland when this idiot took the ball out of the hands of Brady at the end of the game. While he really annoyed me a lot before that, I still (rightly) until then put most of the blame on Leftwich. But the end of that Cleveland game turned me fully against Bowles as well. While Leftwich was truly a horrifically bad and really really stupid OC who tanked last year, it was Bowles that put the final nails in the coffin.
May 17th, 2023 at 1:29 pm
The Bucs aren’t going to fire him during the season, certainly not after having him as head coach for just one season. Plus it’s not like firing Bowles during the year is suddenly going to make the Bucs a playoff team when they don’t have a QB.
The Bucs will wait until the end of the year to fire him, that way, hopefully, they’ll secure a top pick in the draft and can get a new QB.
I just hope Licht isn’t brought down by this as I think he’s done a great job overall – and Arians, by retiring at the very end of March 2022, left the team with only two bad choices as HC, that being Bowles or Leftwich, and out of the two, the Bucs did make the correct call.
May 17th, 2023 at 1:42 pm
Rod Munch-
I saw end of Browns game differently-
Browns’ DLine dominated Bucs’ OLine.
Bucs couldn’t run the ball, but 2 out of 3 plays Bucs passed- and it was for short gain or incomplete.
Bucs had penalties that hurt and Brady was sacked that backed them up and led to Browns’ winning drive.
May 17th, 2023 at 2:35 pm
One reason the Lost Decade was Lost is because our owners are impatient and every coach is just waiting to get fired. That does not attract the best candidates.
May 17th, 2023 at 3:24 pm
BA made a huge mistake . Bowles never was , and is not HC material. Licht also shares blame for last season . Before august 1st , we lost 3 OL probowl level players . Licht only replaced one of them with a proven vet -fully knowing Brady was not a running QB. . Licht made that decision. We just couldn’t run the ball with personnel licht gave bowles.
Now we’re left with Bowles , no Brady ,and an OC who’s never been one before. ’23 will not be a pretty season-nor a winning one . Bowles is simply not a leader of men .
May 17th, 2023 at 4:47 pm
Toilet Todd has got to be on the hottest seat of the 32 HCs!
May 17th, 2023 at 6:54 pm
“The Buccaneers open up with a difficult four-game stretch to start the season. They could easily go 1-3 entering their Week 5 bye. If the Buccaneers get off to a disastrous start, their early bye week presents an opportunity for a coaching change. Bowles is a contender to be the first coach fired.”
Obviously the guy has not done his research. Joe is right, the Glazers never fire head coaches during a season. Bowles will at least have until after the final game played.
That said…if we go 1-3 to start, Mayfield should be benched and the Trask Era will begin…however long it is.
May 17th, 2023 at 8:45 pm
Let’s see if he’s gonna drive us into the arms of Maye or Caleb.