“Under” Prediction For Tampa Bay As Analyst Projects Zac Robinson Could Save Todd Bowles
May 29th, 2026
Former PFF Tribesman and popular NFL analytics miner Sam Monson recently delivered in-depth predictions for the 2026 fortunes of every NFC South team.
Monson went “over” on 7.5 win totals for the Falcons, Panthers and Saints. His Check The Mic podcast has FanDuel as a sponsor, so Joe assumes that’s where the season-win-total lines originated.
The Bucs, however, are the favorite in the sad NFC South with an 8.5 win line. Monson took the under.
Yes, he likes Baker Mayfield and the Bucs’ line and their receivers corps. His issue is with Todd Bowles, and Monson verbalized his concern in a way few if any media types ever have.
“I generally think this idea of like a game has passed a coach by is at a minimum overstating these types of things; if you’re going to ask that about anybody, though, I think Todd Bowles is the guy you’d ask it about,” Monson said.
“Like [Bowles] always had an unusual scheme defensively — how he goes about things, the blitz-heavy stuff. It does feel like [the Bucs defense] has been exposed more in recent years. Do teams just understand how to play his defense now? And if they do, it’s too exploitable.
“And ironically, one of the guys that’s exploited it the most is now on the coaching staff on the other side of the ball. There’s then the question of, genuinely, does [Bowles] use [offensive coordinator] Zac Robinson to self-scout his defense? He should.
“A smart thing would be with Zac in the building is, ‘Hey, give me a two-page dossier of everything you did to attack me because Kirk Cousins should not be hanging 500 yards on my defense.'”
Joe sure hopes that dossier was created — and studied by Bowles and the other sharp minds at One Buc Palace.
Joe doesn’t think the NFL has passed Bowles by. But if the Bucs struggle to tackle and rush the passer again this season, Joe might have a very different take.
May 29th, 2026 at 7:19 pm
Bucs will get 8 or 9 wins in 2026 and will or will not win the NFC South – that is all
May 29th, 2026 at 7:24 pm
Todd doing something that might help while proving him wrong?
Sure, that’ll happen.
May 29th, 2026 at 7:28 pm
How much talent do we need to win with Bowles? I hope we have enough. Go Bucs!
May 29th, 2026 at 8:00 pm
Bowles is never going to change his philosophy on defense.
The offense will need to be very potent in order to offset the points that will be given to our opponents.
And we get to see that front and center game one vs the Bengals.
It will likely take 35 to 40+ in order to take down Burrow and Chase.
They’re going to hang some crooked numbers on the Swiss cheese scheme.
May 29th, 2026 at 8:06 pm
If the league has passed Bowles by it’s because he is a Schemer and today the strategies are about Matchups. It’s not about patterns and counterpatterns, but about isolating individuals in unequal mano-a-manos. Zac’s dossier would be brief: Your guy can’t tackle Bijan, and your other guy can’t cover my tight end. I think Bowles knows this and has patiently worked at acquiring new talent on defense while testing those young ones that he has got in various scenarios against various opponents to assay their one-on-one abilities against various types of players. Now we’ll see if we have a critical mass of defenders to match against our opposition.
May 29th, 2026 at 8:09 pm
The Bucs will win around 7 games this season, with little likelihood to be above.500.
May 29th, 2026 at 8:10 pm
Everyone here said he should do that as soon as Robinson was hired. I would love to know if he has done this. If he hasn’t something is seriously wrong. I hope someone ask Todd this question again to see if he has. But it doesn’t matter when guys get Todd’s age and how he is he is not going to change anything even if Robinson tells him there’s a huge weakness when you line up in x,y, and z. I can hear Todd saying we just have to play it better.
May 29th, 2026 at 8:20 pm
But I thought all the misery was because of Baker…
May 29th, 2026 at 8:45 pm
I said probably 8-9.
May 29th, 2026 at 9:16 pm
I’m with Dan Orlovsky. We’re a definite contender in the NFC. The only way we don’t win 9 or more is if Baker goes down for long. Even with Browning and maybe this Daniels, I think we can still win 9 games. We’re gonna be alot better than the last 3 years.
May 29th, 2026 at 9:32 pm
The idea or hope that IBS will somehow wake up one morning as if he were touched by an angel and miraculously be even a decent HC is maddening..
The Bucs will NEVER have a real shot at any sustainable success until a talented HC is brought in!
May 29th, 2026 at 9:50 pm
Tom brady couldn’t save him
May 29th, 2026 at 10:13 pm
Sounding a lot like the off season before 2024.
I like the under estimation myself. No bandwagon.
Keep Baker’s chip healthy and large.
I’m a Bucs fan either way and always.
May 29th, 2026 at 10:20 pm
Many folks here said this months ago, that maybe Zac and his 500 yard Cousins games could straighten Bowles D out a bit.
Many of us have also been saying the game has passed Bowles by.
Not because he doesn’t know football but because the NFL game on the sidelines is now much more high risk. Aggressive passing offenses, 4th down analytics, 2 pt conversion analytics… Bowles doesn’t play that game.
He still plays the live to fight another day game and stop the run at all costs. Teams don’t even know how to commit to the run anymore. I’ve watched countless games the last few years where teams are churning yards on the ground and abandon that to chase faster points when their D gives one up.
Teams don’t play the long game anymore, the good coaches and teams treat every quarter like it’s the last one and Todd still coaches as if there is 5 quarters. 0 urgency.
May 29th, 2026 at 10:53 pm
Has the game passed Todd Bowles by? One could easily assert that after last season’s pants pooping on top of his post-Arians mediocrity and if one looks at his time with the Jets- did he ever have it in him to be a head coach? Ever?
I don’t think he has proved his worth as a head coach yet but he is better than any of the alternatives who would accept an offer to replace him. If the Bucs fired him we’d be rolling into the Matt Eberflus era- at best. I have no faith in the Glazers to attract or retain talented football minds or players. Licht has a tough job. Out of the new hires for 2026, only Mike LaFleur would have ditched the Cards for this situation.
Bowles defenders cite his owning Andy Reid in the Superbowl. Uh, speaking of the game passing head coaches by, here is Reid’s Chiefs offensive output since that loss:
2021- 28.2 PPG
2022- 29.2 PPG
2023- 21.8 PPG
2024- 22.6 PPG
2025- 21.3 PPG
The game is changing. The question is if Bowles can completely reimagine himself and his defense. Can he become the Kit-Kat bandit who Interpol has no leads on or will he continue to be the cheap ho who makes every rookie QB feel like a real man? I think Robinson is the best ombudsman Bowles can have but thats like saying the Bucs have the best head coach they are capable of having- I’m not going to hype this team.
May 29th, 2026 at 10:54 pm
So the Saints, Falcons and Panthers are ALL overs in the imagination of this dufus – but the Bucs are an under???
That’s some real good prognosticating there there buddy.
And the comments thus far? Geez – the negative Nelly’s are out in force on JBF tonight.
Ya’ll trippin!
9 wins is the floor for this 2026 Bucs team – and 12 wins is the ceiling
May 29th, 2026 at 11:59 pm
I would not say it passed him by, but his defense has been steadily declining since the Super Bowl year. The biggest problem, of course, is pass rush. Consistent pass rush will mask a lot of issues in any type of defense.
May 30th, 2026 at 12:08 am
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again I think the signing of the OC has bin underrated. Zac should have this offense humming
May 30th, 2026 at 1:38 am
Y’all really think Mike MacDonald could have fixed last year’s defense??
May 30th, 2026 at 1:54 am
One of the things we had in the Super Bowl run (besides Brady) was 2 defensive ends at the top of their game. If we have that again … we’ll see. The Bucs have certainly been drafting that position over and over again with poor results until Yaya showed up. If Bain is as good as he seems to be … they’re fine. Better than fine. I think that fixes everything (ish). Maybe everything won’t be fixed but it might not be BROKEN. Its been broken.
May 30th, 2026 at 3:00 am
The winners dossier for the last two years has been find a linebacker in coverage and throw the ball that-a-way.
Plan B was run the ball at Dennis.
Anzalone fixes part of that problem. Trotter may fix the rest. And, with a lot of luck, the Bucs may find some quality depth between Nick Jackson, Caden Fordham and Davin Wright.
It has been mentioned that the Bucs may be thin at depth at DB, but ILB perhaps should be a greater concern.
The Bucs should be on the look out for waiver wire opportunities from late summer cuts at DB and ILB.
May 30th, 2026 at 5:53 am
I would love to hear someone poke that question into Bowles and Licht’s face….” Did you/anyone ask Zac Robinson for a dossier on how to beat Todd’s defense, because Kirk Cousins should not be hanging 500 yards on ANY defense?” And asked just like that
May 30th, 2026 at 6:12 am
Now there is a fine example of an oxymoron…Healthy Chip. It is also the reason I don’t think Baker will last much longer once his skills start to fade. The Bradys of the world are students of the game. They out think opponents; they identify weaknesses and harness strengths. It buys them a couple extra years in the league. Baker is a testosterone driven middle school boy who needs a poke in the chest and a rush of adrenaline to get motivated to perform at peak. That turbo boost works, but puts your body at risk because you end up mindlessly stage diving into a hostile crowd. It is a very immature approach toward professionalism. Love him when he’s high on adrenaline (and salts), but he’s the type of guy you are hesitant to give longterm guaranteed money because that cork could pop at any moment and leave your bottle empty
May 30th, 2026 at 6:48 am
I think Todd’s biggest problem has been the steady deterioration of talent on the D side of the ball–THREE of last year’s starting front 7 aren’t even in the NFL anymore, and a 4th will never start again (Dennis)
May 30th, 2026 at 7:05 am
Zac will save Bowles like he saved Raheem.
Both sides of the ball will be terrible at the worst possible times like every season under Bowles. The game cant pass by a HC when the HC was never ahead of the game. He’s not only in charge of the defense, he leading the entire team. He brings in bad backup players, admits his hand picked players on large contracts get bored in his scheme and won’t bench players who play poorly.
What’s the upside to this guy?
May 30th, 2026 at 8:43 am
The upside is he’s cheap and will do whatever the Glazers tell him to.
It really is that simple. Because we know it isn’t due to his high degree of ability to lead a team to a title.
That will never happen with Bowles as the HC\DC.
Stuck in reverse.
May 30th, 2026 at 10:15 am
Correct me if I’m wrong but the theme was simple to me. No pass rush so a veteran like Stafford or Cousins knew they had time and carved us up. A rookie or younger QB were twitchy and relied on instinct and reaction time so they were more likely to rush throws but again were “safe” from the lack of pass rush. The blitzes were more obvious to veterans while rookies scrambled. That doesn’t encompass all plays but just the general theme of no pass rush. So let’s say we have a pass rush which I think we will but we don’t have CBs. We will likely get burnt by this while other teams fixed this issue like the Rams did this offseason.
May 30th, 2026 at 10:42 am
If you can’t rush the passer, you can’t stop completions, if you can’t cover the receivers.
May 30th, 2026 at 12:05 pm
My prediction: Zac Robinson will be great like Liam Coen was and that will be just enough to save Bowles’ job with 8-10 wins, and then Robinson will get hired away as a HC somewhere other than here, and then we’re back to Square 1 again.
Bowles (or any Defensive coach) being our HC puts us in a pretty terrible position, in my opinion.
We need an great Offensive Coach as our HC in order to be consistently good/great year in and year out.
Hopefully, Robinson becomes HC here if the offense carries our defense again to another mediocre win-loss record. 🙏
May 30th, 2026 at 12:29 pm
“Joe doesn’t think the NFL has passed Bowles by. But if the Bucs struggle to tackle and rush the passer again this season, Joe might have a very different take.”
Why? Why will it take yet another year to see the same stuff we’ve seen for 7 years from Todd to finally convince you? I’m gonna guess when we go 6-11 you’re going to repeat this same exact mantra next year. Just call a spade a spade.
May 30th, 2026 at 2:42 pm
ChiBuc Is correct. It’s not the right type of “leadership” you want from your Quarterback. He’s still the exact same as he’s always been as he’s not focused on the right things. Ya know, you don’t have to agree to EVERY freaking commercial and interview. Especially, at his point of your career. I mean, you would’ve thought that he wouldn’t learned something in Cleveland. But, NO. It’s still the same Baker, and it really begins to wear on teammates. They all buy into it in the very beginning, but then it just becomes too absurd, once they open their eyes, after being exposed to it all. It just eventually becomes a really hard sell. Anyway, another season of 7-9 ‘wins’ would be the very WORST thing that could happen to this franchise. PERIOD. If we are 3-5 heading into that Chicago game right before the Bye, with our upcoming schedule AFTER the Bye, and we DON’T become ‘SELLERS’ at the deadline… Then, it’s a completely WASTED opportunity. Pure ignorance actually, and DELUSIONAL. It would be THE ‘weakest’ thing possible, this Ownership Group could EVER DO. 💯