Todd Bowles Seems To Think Strong Start To 2025 Was A Bit Of A Mirage
February 25th, 2026
Strange response.
There is hardly a day that goes by that Joe doesn’t think of how the Bucs beat Seattle in the Pacific Northwest last season.
The Seahawks, who went on to win the Super Bowl, had maybe the best defense in the league. And the Bucs, without Mike Evans, without Bucky Irving, without Cody Mauch and Luke Goedeke and with a hobbled Chris Godwin, who couldn’t finish the game, hung 38 points on Seattle.
That turned out to be the high-water mark for their season. They were never the same team after that, eventually losing seven of their final nine games and missing the playoffs for the first time this decade.
So with Bucs coach Todd Bowles speaking to the local pen and mic club at the Indiana Convention Center for the first time since his season-ending postmortem, Joe figured Bowles had ample time to watch tape and give Joe a reason for the collapse.
Joe mentioned to Bowles how the Bucs were one of if not the hottest team in the NFL. Bowles basically told Joe to slow down. The Bucs were not playing great, despite being in the running for the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.
“We didn’t execute,” Bowles told Joe. “Even at the beginning of the season when we went 6-2, they were some hard-fought ballgames. It was not like we were blowing people out.
“We were kind of winning because we were doing the right things at the end of the ballgame. And I don’t think we did the right things in the second half [of the season] at the end of ballgames. Whether that was special teams, defense or offense, from a coaching standpoint and a playing standpoint we just have to be better than that.”
This was a weird response from Bowles. Was he trying to say the Bucs were just lucky? That the team wasn’t playing well but got the right bounce of the football?
The Bucs hung with the Eagles (special teams did the Bucs in that day), won at Houston, riddled Seattle for 38 points, beat San Francisco.
That’s what good teams do: Beat good teams. But to hear Bowles, the Bucs were winning with mirrors until the mirror cracked. Strange.
February 25th, 2026 at 5:32 am
Is anyone surprised? I’ll be so glad when we move on from him.
February 25th, 2026 at 5:53 am
Todd mirage bowles he keeps telling everyone he is bad but glazers won’t listen it’s a bucs life.
February 25th, 2026 at 6:00 am
…..and they say black clothes are supposed to have a slimming effect……
February 25th, 2026 at 6:12 am
Bowles isn’t a coach. He is just a spectator like many here. A coach makes adjustments during a game to help his team. He isn’t going to suddenly become something he isn’t. Hard to believe the Glazer’s allow this to continue for another year.
February 25th, 2026 at 6:15 am
When your own head coach calls a fast start a “mirage,” he’s not offering insight, he’s confessing he never understood why it happened. If it was fool’s gold, that’s on Todd Bowles for failing to build on it; if it was real, it’s on him for letting it evaporate. Either way, it’s not analysis, it’s an indictment of his leadership.
February 25th, 2026 at 6:18 am
Seems to me that he was saying that the Bucs didn’t play well the entire season and that they only won all of those games at the beginning because they somehow became super focused in the 4th quarter, eliminating the mistakes they had made early in those games and something they were not able to do the rest of the season.
In other words, he is saying that the second third of the season Bucs were the real Bucs.
February 25th, 2026 at 6:45 am
@ Gipper @ Wouldn’t pay a single Buc
That sums it up perfectly.
February 25th, 2026 at 6:49 am
bowles might be warming people up to the idea that the bucs are not that good…because he might be well aware of a potential soft tank for 26…or he already knows the bucs aren’t investing in the team heavily outside of the standard draft moves…and the future model under his tenure is looking bleaker these days…
like maybe he knows 6-2 is going to be a rally tough task to replicate with his group of stooges
February 25th, 2026 at 6:50 am
And yet here he is, back for another season. Inspire mediocrity
February 25th, 2026 at 6:50 am
“We did a lot of things right in that fast start, especially the players. Including finding ways to win against quality opponents. It’s up to me to find out why we didn’t carry that over in the second half of the season”
It’s really that simple. I’m starting to get the feeling that he’s not completely with it when it comes to understanding his surroundings and audience. I’m trying to be nice but this interaction along with we’ve done what we can do and tossing his fired OC under the buss aren’t good looks at all.
February 25th, 2026 at 6:53 am
The Bowles look of bewilderment.
February 25th, 2026 at 7:02 am
So our roster sucked in 2025? Not much of an endorsement for our 2026 season either, is it?
February 25th, 2026 at 7:07 am
Youhavegottobekiddingme.
February 25th, 2026 at 7:18 am
not surprised at all!!!!
baker was lucky with his “magic” in the first half of the season, when there wasnt any pressure but baker wasnt so lucky when game mattered lol….
too many 4th quarter INTs in the month of DEC doomed us
GO BUCS!!!!
February 25th, 2026 at 7:22 am
if bowles thinks like this, it explains why he was retained and why moves were never made at the trade deadline…
bowles, licht and glazer boys must have known we were lucky winning the games we did lol…
GO BUCS!!!!
February 25th, 2026 at 7:32 am
This is why he is not a great head coach. He did not know how to handle success last season early, then in the second half he did not know how to properly handle failure. His inability to correctly assess the season is a big indicator. Either he can’t see what was going on, or he is saying things he does not believe in order to get a handle on the narrative of the season. Either way people can see through it and know that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be anything more than mediocre.
February 25th, 2026 at 7:44 am
Did the Glazers do the right thing and fire cluelss Todd yet?
February 25th, 2026 at 7:52 am
And some wonder why 90%+ of fans can’t stomach another season with the fraud. He’s the biggest liability in the entire organization. The Glazers are an embarrassment.
February 25th, 2026 at 7:55 am
Ah yes, there’s that photo of Todd inspiring mediocrity.
February 25th, 2026 at 8:07 am
Such an ironic photo