Pete Prisco: When You Don’t Rush The Quarterback, You Have Problems
October 5th, 2026
Sunk by misguided philosophy.
The Bucs had two quarterback hits yesterday. That was the extent of their pass rush.
But that’s been the issue with KitKat-eating Bucs coach Todd Bowles. Since he took over as head coach, he has never valued an edge rush. When an edge rusher starts getting to the quarterback, he vanishes.
When asked why the guy was pulled off the field, Bowles almost always answers with some variation of the explanation: an outside linebacker “has to do other things.”
Joe remembers the late NFL Hall of Fame personnel man Gil Brandt on SiriusXM NFL Radio ranked the three most important positions on a football teams:
1. Quarterback.
2. Edge rusher.
3. Left tackle.
Brandt knew a thing or two about how to build championship teams.
Every defensive guy worth his salt Joe has ever read about or come across mentions getting after the quarterback as a critical priority. That is, except for Bowles.
Sadly, the chickens are coming home to roost. The Bucs have now sunk as a team to an embarrassing level of dysfunction. Does anyone really believe Bowles is the Bucs head coach in 2027? Anyone?
The Bucs are in trouble, said prickly Pete Prisco of CBS on Sunday. And why is that? Invisible pass rush.
“They’re not a good football team right now,” Prisco said on CBS Sports HQ. “And it’s not just offensively where they had the backup quarterback.
“Defensively, they’ve had issues all year long. You go down their list of sacks, they get any today? NONE!
“That’s always a concern when you don’t rush the quarterback.”
How many first-, second-, third-round picks must be burned by Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht, how much Team Glazer loot has to be sacrificed on free agents before, Bowles has to pay the ultimate price as an NFL head coach? Year after year they come to Tampa Bay under Bowles and every one of them sees their production diminish under Bowles.
Al-Quadin Muhammad, A’Shawn Robinson and Rueben Bain were all big-name new additions to the roster this year to beef up the pass rush and try to put fear in opposing quarterbacks.
Guess how many sacks these three have combined?
ONE!
This madness must end. The Joe typing this here article believes it will end in January. It didn’t have to be this way. But when you try to reinvent the wheel and the wheel never moves, someone has to pay.
"They're not a good football team right now. I'm worried about the Bucs." 😳@PriscoCBS #NFLPostgame pic.twitter.com/NU0shB3ySo
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) October 5, 2026
October 5th, 2026 at 9:06 am
Sorry.
The players / talent is there this dope just can’t get it out of them. 23 games under 500 as a HC. 3 winning seasons out of 9 years being a HC. While new staff. Same problems that only one consistent BOWELS!!!!!
God can’t believe this guy is still here!!!
Coen
N Johnson
Kubiack
Monken
Harbaugh
Nope stay with career loser
October 5th, 2026 at 9:07 am
After watching Bowles post game presser, it’s clear he has no answers.
When pressed on reasons for this continued collapse he just spouts empty rhetoric and platitudes.
Zero substance whatsoever. It’s like listening to a small child on why his crayons are all broken.
He’s an insult to every fan of this team. We deserve better than a bottom feeder.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:09 am
“I think the O-line did a great job today,” Love said. “Pass protection, run game … just keep me clean, give me some time. They did a great job, and you could feel the difference back there, for sure.”
October 5th, 2026 at 9:11 am
Defense wasn’t the problem yesterday only giving up 17 points. Should we go for more sacks? Sure. But points are what is on the scoreboard. Bowles needs to leave the chat but the defense is not bad this year.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:12 am
When was the last time we got decent pressure from our Edge Rushers?
It was JPP and Shaq Barrett delivering the pressure
Since that time most of our pressure has come from the interior of our DLine
And now they are not delivering
But the defense played good overall
We are not getting blown out yet
Our offense has been invisible that’s the problem
No RB1
No WR1
No QB1
No TE1
A overrated OLine
October 5th, 2026 at 9:13 am
After the Cowboys curb stomp the Bucs on Thursday, the Glazers need to fire Bowles immediately, along with Robinson.
While this is counter to the team’s history, Bowles and Robinson are actively harming the team with their game plans and are eroding its most important asset: the players.
How many of the younger players are going to be ruined through coaching malpractice?
The Glazer’s need to realize that this is not a normal lost season. They were duped by Bowles into giving him (yet) another chance. He is not a “nice guy”: he threw a bunch of folks under the bus to retain his job. That’s not something good people do. He is a malefactor, vandalizing the team with his incompetence, and he has to be removed as soon as possible.
For the balance of the season, a caretaker staff needs to be put in place, focused on harm reduction and preserving the morale and health of the team’s younger players. Veteran assets like Robinson, Godwin, and Winfield should be traded for draft capital. If Licht is on board, great, otherwise he can be swept out in the inevitable house cleaning.
The Glazer’s are entirely responsible for this fiasco. The hive mind has made six coaching hires, with only one success (Arians), one bad hire (Koetter), and four eye-watering failures that resulted in catastrophes (Bowles, Smith, Schiano, and Morris). They need to do some serious soul-searching. They are bad at this, and they need to rethink their approach at the most fundamental level.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:15 am
• Superficial charm: They often seem friendly, smart, and engaging on the surface.
• Lack of empathy: They cannot feel or understand the emotional pain of other people.
• No remorse: They feel zero guilt when their actions hurt someone else.
• Pathological lying: They lie easily and often to get what they want.
This fits Jason Licht to a T – he is a psychopath – a psychopath is the GM of the Bucs
October 5th, 2026 at 9:15 am
Count the number of black head coaches in the NFL.
Then you will have your answer to why the Glazers didn’t fire Bowles last year.
Why do we have to take one for the team.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:19 am
This defense, with the soft zone coverage, may get some stops but they do not leave the offense with good filed position on most offense possessions. Stop already with dropping D line players back into zone coverage. Every team we are playing knows this scheme and takes advantage of it. Even the bad teams like Green Bay with a patched up O line give their QB all day to throw
October 5th, 2026 at 9:20 am
• Hallucinations: Seeing, hearing, or feeling things that do not exist, such as hearing voices.
• Delusions: Strong, false beliefs that do not change even when shown facts, such as feeling plotted against.
• Disorganized thinking: Speaking or moving in a confused, fast, or hard-to-understand way.
this sounds a lot like some delusional JBF commenters who think that Jason Licht is a decent GM – they are by definition psychotic
October 5th, 2026 at 9:21 am
I saw a gameplay that had 7 different receivers catch balls ,I saw a rushing effort off 100 yards,they needed a couple sacks and again the turnovers showed up… Personel
October 5th, 2026 at 9:21 am
It’s been a long time since I had to write off a season by Halloween. It’s been even longer since I had to do it before Halloween. After this Thursday’s loss to the cowboys, this season is officially done.
What a sad state of affairs.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:22 am
Look at Fraud Bowels record as head coach in the NFL
October 5th, 2026 at 9:23 am
And they couldn’t stop the run..Personel
October 5th, 2026 at 9:23 am
The Den of Depression is at full strength.
Todd is lucky he is not in Philadelphia. SMH
October 5th, 2026 at 9:26 am
Bowles is more concerned about OLBs like Walker and Bain learning to cover in a 3-4 scheme so that they can be boat raced in the flat by a TE, flanker or RB! He has been doing this malarkey for the past 4 years. It is beyond old. Glazers, it is time, fire Todd. Do you want to be the ownership who allowed Todd to go 0-17 on your watch? That will happen as long as he is head coach. Todd is worse than Lovie and Toes to the Ground Greg and Rah combined. Put us fans out of misery, fire him and give us a bit of hope.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:31 am
@ Get rid….that was the most idiotic post I’ve ever seen..lol
October 5th, 2026 at 9:32 am
If Zac Robinson couldn’t get it done in Atlanta with’
Kirk Cousins
QB1, a pure pocket passer with big arm
Bijan Robinson
RB1, the best RB the NFL, over 2200 yards from scrimmage
Drake London
WR1, a consistent 1,000 yard WR, one of the best in the NFL
Kyle Pitts.TE1, 2nd team All-Pro, one of the best Move TE in the NFL
A decent offensive line
One of the top run blocking OLine in the NFL
If Zac couldn’t win with all of that
Why did we expect him to work his magic in Tampa, with so much less?
That and the big contracts handed out , are our greatest blunders
October 5th, 2026 at 9:32 am
What’s he gonna say now?
“WELL WE’RE ONLY TWO GAMES OUT OF FIRST PLACE IN THE DIVISION.”
October 5th, 2026 at 9:34 am
Bowles entire philosophy on defense is built around his perspective as a former safety. It’s really not hard to grasp once you look at it from that point of view. He wants to highlight the safeties as his chess pieces….its flawed to say the least. I think it might be serviceable IF you have a high octane offense that will score consistently and keep pressure on the opposing team to pass. Then it possibly works with all the disguises and drops because the opponent is one dimensional AND under pressure to score…that’s generally when QBs might start forcing throws or trying too hard to make a play.
But in a dog fight game aka “one score”…..there is no pressure to go one dimensional and what we’ve seen over and over and over is teams march down the field and take the lead late in games. Usually around the end of the 3rd qtr or early 4th our defense starts to look gassed and more predictable. Teams start dinking and dunking down the field, RBs start ripping off 5-7 yds per carry, the TE gets hit over and over for 1st downs and we have no solution because we have never put an emphasis on developing a pass rush organically with our DEs. We’ve tried to manufacture a pass rush through blitzes, disguises, etc and late in the game we can’t truly go all out because Bowles is trying to balance not giving up a big play vs creating pressure.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:34 am
Its a systematic problem. You cant play soft coverage and expect the rush to get there. These guys have no chance. At what point do you quit working your tail off to get to the QB when you know coverage is going to give up easy yards every time?
That was a really bad Packers offense, and yet again they let marginal TE’s gash them all day when it mattered most.
Has Bowles always been gutless?
October 5th, 2026 at 9:36 am
The Bucs are winners with Bowles. Everyone will see!
October 5th, 2026 at 9:36 am
@ RID….Stop streaming the young and the restless on Sundays eat a wing drink a beer say a cuss word! WTF!
October 5th, 2026 at 9:37 am
Tanka Bay time
October 5th, 2026 at 9:38 am
@ Steve V – the truth hurts, doesn’t it ?
October 5th, 2026 at 9:40 am
Just fire them both after the Cowboys game. Let Baker be the OC. He’s had 11 OCs,he should be able to put together a game plan now. He can’t do any worse and if he does we end up with the top pick!
October 5th, 2026 at 9:41 am
Todd Bowles defense ranks #4 in “yards allowed per game” in the NFL and his defense has only allowed @ 20.5 points per game.
That is actually pretty darn solid IMO…
He isn’t a bad defensive coordinator.
Unfortunately – He isn’t a very good head coach either…
Our O-line and Baker Mayfield has been the biggest disappointment so far this season.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:41 am
there are still morons that think bowles and the defense are ok. shocking (but not really, there are people that stupid) in the face of no pass rush and letting the hapless packers run down their throats.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:44 am
They couldnt tee off on a quarterback with an oline they got off the streets it is not a good defense sorry dunno if it’s scheme or talent but whatever it is it isn’t good no matter what the stat nerds want to tell you.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:45 am
I wanted Bowels fired before the end of last season. I would happily accpet the certainty of a lost season if he were fired after the nationally televised Thursday night game, where the bucs will once again be embarrassed in a Prime Time game. I get that the entire coaching staff may be lost at the end of the season, but for the love of the fans, just fire him.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:45 am
Bowles making it even worse now. I mean at least when they didn’t have a pass rush he would blitz but he isn’t even doing that now. Go watch the tape when the packers had it on our goal line what does Bowles do he drops Vita into coverage on the damn goal line instead of letting him rush. I mean you can’t make this stuff up. Pretty sure a Publix bag worker could coach this team better than the inept coaching staff we have.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:47 am
Coaching Matters, see IU or the Jags!! It amazes me that the owners dont want better for themselves and their fans who have suffered enough.
October 5th, 2026 at 9:47 am
This franchise is the true definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
FIRE EVERYONE INCLUDING JASON LICHT.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:00 am
2 weeks in a row the defense did enough to win. Could say that about at least a third as well. This OC is worse than last year and truly one of the top 3 worst of all time AND he was supposedly Bakers choice. Disappointing in every way to know we could have multiple wins if our offense actually did its job.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:02 am
The difference between the two teams was stark……we had no rush….they pressured us practically every time.
Our WRs aren’t getting open.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:03 am
Stop with the talent BS. Another myth like the heat is a home field advantage. We are not stacked with talent. Bad roster, worse coach.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:06 am
Only stat that matters is wins, and losses. A better team would’ve crushed Todd’s D. Wait till Thursday night, then tell me how good the D is.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:13 am
who would you rather have @ QB ?
Bryce Young
Tyler Shough
Michael Penix
Baker Mayfield
Jalon Daniels
notwithstanding the 0-4 soon to be 0-5 record the Bucs do not have the best QB in the division
October 5th, 2026 at 10:14 am
What’s confusing to me is this guy has had the most success defensively when he prioritized edge rushers being edge rushers and let the corners play press man so that when he blitzed or rushed like he loves to do, there was not some soft zone that every QB in the NFL seems to know about with our defense at this point.
I don’t get it anymore. He just doesn’t have ‘it’. No killer instinct. No edge. No hope right now.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:27 am
Marine Buc Says:
October 5th, 2026 at 9:41 am
Todd Bowles defense ranks #4 in “yards allowed per game” in the NFL and his defense has only allowed @ 20.5 points per game.
That is actually pretty darn solid IMO…
He isn’t a bad defensive coordinator.
Unfortunately – He isn’t a very good head coach either…
Our O-line and Baker Mayfield has been the biggest disappointment so far this season.
Using yards allowed and points scored against statistics at this point in the
season are meaningless. Which really good offensive teams have they played so far? Green Bay – no, Browns – no, Vikings – no? The Bengals are the only offense they have played against that is decent and they scored at will against the Bucs.
Don’t you think a bad offensive line has something to do with poor QB play?
October 5th, 2026 at 10:34 am
Was Bowles only a good coach when he had excellent HOF players? He did a great job scheming the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. The Bucs have a lot of good players on defense, but the sum is less than the parts. I just don’t get it. Ronde needs to do a whole show breaking down the differences between the effectiveness of the Super Bowl team and the struggles of the current defense.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:53 am
Stuck with this guy for 3 more months… unless the owners are as fed up as the fans and they remove Bowles after the Cowboys loss. That would be out of character for them, but it’s a flicker of hope. Not that removing Bowles this year would buy them any wins, but at least we’d have some relief. They don’t have anyone to take over as head coach though. There’s nobody on that staff with the qualities to even serve as a temporary caretaker.
October 5th, 2026 at 10:55 am
I saw Vita Vea playing free safety on so many snaps yesterday. Its so wild. Am I the only one seeing this?
October 5th, 2026 at 10:57 am
James Willie Says:
October 5th, 2026 at 10:34 am
October 5th, 2026 at 11:10 am
And when you don’t have a franchise qb you have problems
October 5th, 2026 at 11:16 am
@ Rid…Let a game/team something I have no control over hurt my feelings ,thats not me ive got other things to do,in other words its just a game get over it..
October 5th, 2026 at 11:19 am
@40 yrs…Sorry i disagree Its about a player playing well,aka Kirk Cousins…
October 5th, 2026 at 11:22 am
Fire everyone now!that way they can win out..
October 5th, 2026 at 11:38 am
You cannot and will not win in this NFL without some pass rush during the game.
You guys should have seen the Cowboys’ comeback yesterday. 0-5 here we come at blazing speed.
October 5th, 2026 at 11:43 am
Fire Bowles. Promote the OC to be the head coach for the rest of the season and get the #1 in next years draft.
October 5th, 2026 at 11:54 am
This is why you cannot properly evaluate the talent on this team or Licht.
Cause Bowles is useless. Fitting guys to his system that constantly gets shredded instead of tailoring the D to his players strengths and opponents weaknesses.
Great, the D isn’t the problem right now but it’s still not good. 17 points yesterday but it was very nearly 31. Bucs recover a fumble at the goalline and if Parrish doesn’t freelance for that pick Packers looking at another TD.
Bucs have a bunch of con men in house. Can’t evaluate Lichts talent cause he has a lame duck HC for 5 years!!! Can’t blame Bowles, D are holding teams low. Gonna be a domino of firings here in a bit as they all topple one another.
October 5th, 2026 at 12:14 pm
James Willie
His scheme was successful in the Super Bowl because the Chiefs had neither of their starting tackles. And Mahomes suffered at least three or four drops. They would’ve changed the outcome of the game. That and we had Tom Brady keeping everybody in line. It had very little to do with Bowles.
October 5th, 2026 at 12:16 pm
None of this makes sense. Most Bucs fans observed all of the issues with Bowles defense for years. Then last year when we crapped the bed the second half of the season it appeared the team quit on Bowles. A change should have been made by the Glazers then. Anyone thinking that this year would be different hasn’t been paying attention to the Bucs. The players especially on defense have to know what is going on and why they are not successful. It’s not a lack of talent, it’s coaching. There is no good reason on Gods green earth why the Glazers didn’t fire Bowles at the end of last year. Not sure how much money is tied up with Bowles and the coaching staff but maybe the reason Bowles was kept is financial. Nothing else makes any sense.
October 5th, 2026 at 1:13 pm
Wake me up in January when this nightmare is over please
October 5th, 2026 at 3:32 pm
The Bucs defense gave up 17 points, and that was with the refs giving the Packers 2 TDs.
The defense also had 3 turnovers, before the refs again got involved in the game and reduced that to 2 turnovers.
The defense wasn’t a problem yesterday, and hasn’t been a problem this year.
October 5th, 2026 at 3:38 pm
I don’t like to overreact. But too many examples to support firing Coach Bowles. Tired of the excuses that coaching needs to be better, effort needs to be better, we just didn’t execute, we aren’t using key players to their strengths, and now some phantom wind caused us to attempt a 4th and 11 with an undrafted QB in his first start versus putting the game on a highly reliable kickers shoulders at a distance that he can make. No blame there towards Jalon just reality of any new QB.
Gerald McCoy yesterday has also elaborated on first hand conversations that he has had with current players and summed it by saying they are coaching them to do things that aren’t going to work. Is that why we aren’t seeing more consistent effort?
Let’s move on and get an Offensive Head Coach that knows how to make adjustments and be the thermostat to turn up the temps.
October 5th, 2026 at 5:29 pm
The eye test tells me the players are going through the motions. I see little to no spirit and no TOUGHNESS. Personally, I think they want Bowles gone. Fix that and scout out the players that aren’;t going to contribute, just putting their time in and collecting salary.