Marcus Spears Feels Todd Bowles’ Defense Will Drag Bucs Down
November 19th, 2025
Big plays will kill Bucs.
It pained Marcus Spears to say it, but unless Bucs coach Todd Bowles can repair his suddenly porous defense, it will be the defense and not the Bucs’ injury-riddled offense that will drag the Bucs down in the playoffs.
If they get to the playoffs.
The Bucs’ defense in the past two games has given up 849 yards. Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen tied his Super Bowl-era record of being a part of six touchdowns (three touchdown passes, three touchdown runs) against the Bucs on Sunday.
The 10 touchdowns total the Bucs have coughed up against the Patriots and Bills, the Bucs’ last two opponents, have been for an average of 33-yards.
This has Spears nauseated. Spears is a Bowles guy. When he was a young defensive end breaking in with the Cowboys nearly 20 years ago, Bowles was the Cowboys’ secondary coach. So the two go back a ways.
Still, Spears has to call it like he sees it. He said yesterday on BSPN’s NFL Live that Bowles’ defense as it is currently designed, is just giving up way too many big plays and the Bucs won’t go far in the postseason with that defense, if the Bucs make the playoffs.
“For as much as I love Todd Bowles and how he calls defense, this team gives up too many, entirely too many, explosive plays,” Spears said. “And it’s not just coming off of the Josh Allen performance.
“Because, obviously, we saw those explosives, but this has been a recurring theme. And obviously Jamel Dean went out of that [Buffalo] game.”
Spears said the Bucs’ inability to get quarterbacks on the ground is very worrisome.
Not putting quarterbacks on their rear ends “it’s turning into touchdowns and explosive plays,” Spears said. “I’m worried about that.”
So should the Bucs and so should Bucs fans.
And it would help greatly if a certain someone on the sidelines grasps that his defense since the bye is not an asset, but a liability and currently cannot be trusted in a close game.
November 19th, 2025 at 5:29 am
Wait until Stafford destroys the defense. What will Todd’s excuse be this week?
November 19th, 2025 at 5:46 am
Did Spears see the last Bills games and Allen’s performance early on in our game against them? He hasn’t looked that great. McDermott was probably on the hot seat.
Spears is right about lack of sacking QBs. But when they do go after the QB, they get a face-mask call or other penalty that really wasn’t one, just because the QB whines about it. Yes, our turnovers should become a TD. It seemed as though by the 4th quarter, we had given up. And the Bucs shouldn’t get in the red zone multiple times with the same play, and producing nothing. It’s not all on Todd. There are other working parts not working.
November 19th, 2025 at 5:50 am
I started a new rumor. Cody Mauch slams backup QB Teddy Bridgewater for missing games due to teeth. Hope everyone has a great day. Go Bucs!
November 19th, 2025 at 5:51 am
same thing every year cousins was benched for poor performance but had a 500 yd 4 td game vs bucs
November 19th, 2025 at 5:56 am
The owners need to step up and force Bowles to hire a DC. That is all there is to it this defense has been doing this since he took over. Everyone can clearly tell it’s the scheme.
November 19th, 2025 at 6:06 am
After the Rams game in which they had a total of 570 offensive yards and blew out the Bucs, Bowles said, “Teah, I am very pleased with our Special Teams effort. They only gave up 2 scores and only gave up 4 returns in our territory. Great progress. Our defense showed real grit holding Stanford to 398 yards. We had several QB touches. I was really pleased that Vita showed skill in dropping out into coverage. It’s a shame he gave up a couple of long passes, but he showed that he can do coverage. I have to mention our offense. We ground and pound the Rams and got 68 running yards. Baker was only sacked 4 times. Great game. We showed we belong among the NFL elite with our performance.”
November 19th, 2025 at 6:40 am
Proudbucs fan: it will take the Glazers to make Todd give up play calling and that will not happen unless Bowles is invited back for next season. The Bucs last fired a coach/coordinator mid- season when the Glazers likely forced Licht and Dirk Koetter to part ways with Mike Smith after he coached the Bucs’ D in bad losses to Chicago and Atlanta which probably were not much worse than what Bowles crew put up in Buffalo this weekend. Koetter said that he would not do any changes and then the ATL scored like 35 first half point on Smitty and the next Monday Smitty was launched. It will take something like that to force Bowles to give up calling plays. Anyhow, if Bowles D continues to get boat-raced then the Bucs will miss the playoffs and then Bowles should get canned, not just lose his play calling ability on D.
November 19th, 2025 at 7:02 am
We were saying the same things about Bowles last year at this time. He got an extension in the off season, because he pulled the team together down the stretch, won the division, done at home in the first round. This year was to be different, but it’s not. We were supposed to not have a mid season swoon. We were going to compete with the Lions, Philly, Bills. Hasn’t happened. Glazers paid money believing it was. We’ll see if Bowles is lauded once again for winning the division, or if not? It’s up to the Glazers.
November 19th, 2025 at 7:17 am
If you score 32 points, you gotta win that game
November 19th, 2025 at 7:17 am
.The Buccaneers will not make the playoffs this year. Instead, the Carolina Panthers will.
November 19th, 2025 at 7:26 am
I’ve been saying this all along that it’s the scheme/system & everything.