Todd Bowles Said A Few Players Are Dragging Down Bucs
December 12th, 2025
Some players tuned out?
Joe has suspected, maybe going back to last year, that the Bucs may have a locker room issue.
For Joe, when he sees guys leave the locker room early, that is a red flag. Though not to paint with a broad brush, more often than not, guys who race into the locker room and are the first ones out, even before the locker room is open, those are guys that either don’t want to be there or have more important things in their lives than football.
DeSean Jackson and Swaggy Baker are two guys who did this regularly.
Last year Joe started seeing a few players do this, including one guy who Joe thought was maybe the most standup guy in the locker room.
Coincidentally, his play has dropped.
Then, when Baker Mayfield, Lavonte David and Todd Bowles all unloaded on teammates, separately, in a span of a month, that told Joe there were locker room problems. If not, then why were two team leaders and the head coach reading teammates the riot act in almost successive weeks? That doesn’t happen with good locker rooms.
Then when the Bucs signed Jason Pierre-Paul and were open about how they needed his juice, that was confirmation of Joe’s fears concerning the locker room.
Guess “I Am That Man” was susceptible to con artists, too?
Joe brings all of this up because last night in his postgame remarks, Bucs coach Todd Bowles all but said some players simply are not listening to coaches and that is why the defense has caved in since the bye.
“The coaches have done everything they can do,” Bowles said. “This is a player-driven team in the last four or five weeks. You got to execute. They got to hold each other accountable.
“As a coach you can sit there till you blue in the face. Until they start holding each other accountable and doing the little things right, and that’s not everybody, we’re talking about a small, select few.
“But the small, select few is what’s getting us beat. Until that happens, it’s not going to get right.”
That almost sounds to Joe like Bowles has lost a chunk of the locker room. May not be many, but enough to Pearl Harbor the entire team.
Just for the record, Joe saw the clip of Mike Evans hollering last night. Joe cannot tell at all if Evans was yelling at Bowles. It looked like Evans was having a s(p)it fit and he just happened to turn briefly in the general direction of Bowles in the middle of his rant.
Last night Bowles effusively praised Evans so if Evans was hollering at Bowles, the Bucs coach didn’t seem bothered by it.
Joe can say there were three players who were visibly angry at the loss. One was Evans. As he approached the locker room, he doubled over in rage, face grew red, clenched his fists and screamed, “This is f’ing bulls(p)it!”
Vita Vea yelled something that Joe couldn’t make out. Tykee Smith yelled, “We ain’t done s(p)it!” It was as if he was saying the Bucs haven’t earned the right to drag tail.
If Joe has interpreted Smith correctly, he’s right on.
December 12th, 2025 at 4:34 am
I’d say a few Coaches are what are bringing the Bucs down.
FIRE BOWLES
December 12th, 2025 at 4:43 am
Season is done – change is needed
December 12th, 2025 at 4:52 am
Calm down Players….season is over because of todd….but its all good. We’ll bounce back next year. We need Sonny Styles in the draft…and we’ll move on from todd. Just trust the process 🙂
December 12th, 2025 at 4:58 am
Zion ??? Reddick is a joke at this point..AWJ has been invisible as of late as well..Do tell Joe !!!
December 12th, 2025 at 5:10 am
Are we talking about #31?
December 12th, 2025 at 5:14 am
Zion is one im sure….too many times given up on plays, ive seen it. Reddick too at times….and Braswell just looks like he dont care anymore, he’s all about his religion that doesnt fit well sometimes…sorry, just saying its showing.
December 12th, 2025 at 5:17 am
btw, misspelled on purpose….
December 12th, 2025 at 5:19 am
Knew they were done when I saw Vildor playing. Sucked for the Lions, pretty much the same in TB
December 12th, 2025 at 5:20 am
Bye Todd.
Thanks for the mediocre memories.
Waste of a season.
Get rid of Bakey too.
December 12th, 2025 at 5:25 am
The stat shown on Prime at halftime interview was all too telling; 16-51 career record when trailing at halftime as a HC, and 0-6 this season. Make that 0-7 now.
December 12th, 2025 at 5:43 am
Tough to watch. To and insult, our last two OC’s are now HC’s and doing well…and there are no clear cut candidates to replace Todd. We can’t even do succession planning right.
December 12th, 2025 at 5:50 am
If some of the players on the team are toxic, sit their butts on the bench. I’d rather have an average player playing their hearts out than a toxic superstar just playing average.
December 12th, 2025 at 5:51 am
Bring back Gruden but don’t let him be involved in picking players.
December 12th, 2025 at 5:57 am
In the guys aren’t listening forget that I also to the coach medical then the coach doesn’t need to be there.
December 12th, 2025 at 5:59 am
Simple question. Why are these few still on the team much less starting
December 12th, 2025 at 6:02 am
No doubt our defense blows chunks, but how come no one is talking about how bad the 0line played? Baker never had a drop-back with any time. Every snap he was running for his life.
December 12th, 2025 at 6:05 am
Bowles’s profane rant is telling, he knows this may have been the last straw for his tenure here. With nothing to lose, personally I’d like to see him now take more radical leadership decisions. For instance, these few guys on defense who he said are not listening – bench them in a must-win game (e.g., our next game). Or bench them until the second half. And regardless of what happens in that one game, being benched for this reason will be forever remembered on the career resumes of these few guys.
December 12th, 2025 at 6:17 am
While Bowles isn’t wrong, he should’ve included himself and Licht.
December 12th, 2025 at 6:21 am
I wonder what Gruden could do with this offense?
December 12th, 2025 at 6:24 am
I thought the approach was to draft “Buccaneer” men, football loving guys over talented guys with character flaws?
December 12th, 2025 at 6:24 am
hopefully some journalist somewhere puts pen to paper and lists out some names.