Todd Bowles Is No Bruce Arians With Rookies
August 17th, 2025
“Bruce, your ways have left the building.”
Once upon a time in 2019, the Bucs had a rookie with a bad hamstring in preseason and another who had a rough preseason debut.
Sound familiar?
Arians blasted the bad inaugural game and went public saying the injured rookie needed to get his ass on the field.
After a poor performance in the 2019 preseason opener at Pittsburgh, then-Bucs cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting got roasted in public by Arians.
“Bunting didn’t show up tonight,” Arians said. “I would like to see him show up and get his hands on the ball.”
Arians later explained he gave the same message directly to Murphy-Bunting, asking him where he was during the game.
Then-rookie receiver Scotty Miller, a sixth-round pick, also had Arians firing August darts at him in the media, barking that the kid needs to show up and get on the field. Miller later acknowledged the pressure he was under and Arians explained how he needed to teach players a mentality of playing through issues when able.
A year later, Murphy-Bunting and Miller were key components to the Bucs’ Super Bowl run.
Enter Todd Bowles, a protégé of Arians.
Bowles takes a different approach.
Rookie receiver Tez Johnson had a costly muffed punt and a bad drop in his debut last night, and he’s finding love and tenderness from Bucs coaches. Second-round pick rookie cornerback Benjamin Morrison will miss the entire preseason and weeks of practice with a bad hamstring, and Bowles was praising him this morning.
Bowles even said Morrison missing practice time is no big deal.
“I don’t think it’s a huge setback,” Bowles said. [Morrison] watches film all the time, comes in early, and puts the tape on. He wants to learn. It’s just about physically going through the reps. Mentally, he goes through them. He’s not a guy to just sit in the training room and be hurt. He’s trying to get better at all the little things, so when he comes back, he’s ready to go. We think he’ll be ready, and we won’t have any problem putting him in when we need to put him in.”
Wow, Joe can’t remember every hearing a coach say a rookie doesn’t need most of training camp and a preseason game to be “ready to go.”
That either says a ton about Morrison, or it’s evidence of how Bowles won’t say anything that might hurt the confidence of his rookies.
Arians and Bowles have very different approaches. Joe’s not calling out a right or wrong here, just the stark contrast.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:12 pm
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
August 17th, 2025 at 6:21 pm
I do not see the Tez Johnson and Benjamin Morrison situations as being the same.
I feel like Bowles on Johnson to the media —““You know, you got to take care of the ball and you got to manage the game back there. That’s one of the prime responsibilities of a punt returner. So it’s a very good lesson for him that he’ll get better with going forward, but I thought he played fast and I thought he played hard.”
It’s an ok message but I am sure behind doors — it was much more clear. You showed some things tonight but something like if you muff too many you wont be on this team or any team.
The message on Benjamin Morrison is the same as every INJURED Buc
i.e. Wirfs will be ok. he just had a little more damage in the knee then we thought
or Godwin is where we want him to be about now. we know that he had a second surgery on the ankle.
or David Walker missing all of mini camp.
or Morrison its not a huge setback. he is look at film and we expect him to be fine when he is back.
The key to me is the Bucs give us nothing at this time of the year on injuries. They act like guys will be available when necessary.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:26 pm
Bowles….fill in the blanks. The tell is coming in a couple weeks. Great personel. Easy schedule.Great home office. This season will lbe on the coach. With these players we should go undefeated.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:26 pm
Morrison is injured. Exactly what else are you going to do with someone injured? Yell at them for being hurt?
Arians didn’t do anything different than Bowles with injured guys. Good grief.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:26 pm
Big difference between public coach speak and private coach speak. We know the G-rated public critique from Bowles and that’s all we’ve got to go off of lol. Don’t need to hear a coach call his player out in public to ease my mind thats he’s pushing his guys, we hear that all the time from players about Bowles.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:29 pm
HC Glover – So you’re saying the Bucs are better than every NFL team in history, including the ’72 Dolphins who only played 14 games? LOL, wow. Brilliant.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:32 pm
Morrison seems like a pansy. Hopefully he’s not another Dean.
Dean is soft.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:46 pm
Time will tell if TB’s approach works or not! I sure hope it works at least on these two rookies! Different players need different motivation.
August 17th, 2025 at 6:55 pm
BA’s Red Pen, a pansy is a step below soft. Yikes!
August 17th, 2025 at 7:12 pm
Why on earth would you encourage an injured player to play in a worthless pre season game?
August 17th, 2025 at 7:25 pm
Yes was a spectacle last night. Didn’t expect much from the midget, personally. Then he showed off an ability to separate both in the punt game and in the passing game. Impressive, that. But he also muffed a punt and dropped a pass — just after he made an amazing move to get wide-a$$ open.
Interesting player. But not for nothing is it called the NFL — the Not For Long if you pull stuff like that.
Now I’m willing to give Tez —and by extension Bowles and Licht — a chance. Didn’t think he was anything more than a gadget with pub. Now see that he MIGHT be a football player. But we’re still in Missouri, the Show Me state.
August 17th, 2025 at 7:38 pm
Todd Bowles cut Jose Ramirez in 2023
Because he was dealing with nagging injuries through camp
Then signed him to the practice squad
He was the only rookie that got the ax
Ramirez, came into camp last season healthy. And our played all of the Edge Rushers. He even had a 3 sack game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He still couldn’t get on the field last season.
Dirk Koetter cut Jeremy McNicholas as a rookie during the final cuts. He said McNicholas couldn’t pass protect, didn’t understand the playbook blah, blah, blah. So he cut him and went with Doug Martin, Charles Sims, Peyton Barber, Jacquizz Rodgers, his guys.
All four of them guys are long gone from the NFL. Jeremy is still playing for the Washington Commanders, he even had a few touches against the Bucs in their playoff win. He was an all- around RB, contrary to what Koetter was saying.
These GM and HC knows who they want, and who they don’t want. They will give the fan base some ridiculous reason, why they cut the player. And keep less productive players, because they like them
I don’t believe anything coming from the GM or HC
August 17th, 2025 at 8:16 pm
Todd Bowles is not Bruce Arians. Arians, and Parcells were alike. Calling out players all the time. Todd who has coached under both doesn’t seem to have learned their art of motivation. Arians, and Bill are SB winners, only took Arians his second season to kick Jame out of town, and bring in a real QB. Do any of you believe Brady would’ve come here to play for Todd? Arians is a SB winner, and was a winner in AZ. Todd failed in NY, and has yet to get his Bucs team to anything but a division title. Todd is now Bruce.
August 17th, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I think slot of Arians approach had to do with it being a different team mindset at the time. He was the right coach for those players. At the time we had a team that hadn’t hardly won many games and the culture needed someone to kick em in the ass a bit. Arians was a perfect tone setter for a team that had a lacking mindset. He softened a bit after TB came in!
August 17th, 2025 at 9:51 pm
Arians was BETTER and the stats prove it.
August 17th, 2025 at 9:58 pm
Todd Bowles Is No Bruce Arians…..
Todd is SO MUCH less than (as a HC)!!!
August 17th, 2025 at 10:06 pm
Bowles has brought this team through 4 OCs in 5 years. You rubes get it? The constant bitching has long since gotten old and stale.
August 17th, 2025 at 10:09 pm
Tez made a good play, and a bad play. He was literally a rookie playing in his first game ever. People thinking he’s a bum are retarded.
August 17th, 2025 at 10:14 pm
Quit knocking my comments off. Over the monitor message.
August 17th, 2025 at 10:25 pm
I don’t think you need to air anything out in the media, keep it in house, I think that wins more respect and having the players play hard for ya because you treat them like men instead of throwing them out to a media and public.
August 17th, 2025 at 10:35 pm
Bruce Arians. Super Bowl winning coach. A real head coach. Believes that an OC and a DC are important enough jobs to warrant a full time human, thus letting himself to be a full time head coach.
Todd Bowles. Loser.
Period.
August 17th, 2025 at 11:17 pm
oralbuc, your comments are automatically moderated. Three guesses as to why and you can have the first five for free.
August 18th, 2025 at 3:17 am
We don’t know what Bowles says privately to these guys. He tries to keep a positive PR.
August 18th, 2025 at 6:49 am
Some obese fossil calling a nfl player soft and a pansy from his double wide lazy boy
August 18th, 2025 at 6:57 am
Some of you clearly have zero management experience. First of all the Brady era costs two years into the Bowles era. Instead of a complete rebuild, the GM put the best he could afford on the roster while the head coach got the most out of those players.
Tampa realize talent is needed, however temperment, and playing as a team has become the approach during the Bowles era. How many off the field incidents have we had or drama since Brady has left. Additionally, there has been little to no more spent on the coaching staff or the defense three years straight. If tthis team can keep players on the field they will win the SB. Ray Charles can see that Dean will be second to third string. Brasswell has told to put up now while leftovers like Josh Hayes will be cut.
This team has draft picks and money for next season. Lastly, Reddick, Parrish and Tykee are the three we all should watch. The ILB will be fine. If these three ball out, we may be set to run it back.
August 18th, 2025 at 8:43 am
Hey Aqualung, get lost.
August 18th, 2025 at 8:59 pm
One of a couple things I cant stand with Bowles, gives his players too long of a leash, rookies and vets. It leads to poor accountability andas a result, we seem to notice the same mistakes over and over again.