Todd Bowles Says Entire Offense To Blame For Third Down Albatross
September 27th, 2026
Blame to pass around.
Good luck winning games in high school, much less the NFL, if you cannot convert third downs.
Here we are with the Bucs. On a team with Bucky Irving, Emeka Egbuka and Chris Godwin, the Bucs are lucky to convert a third down.
But by all means, please keep throwing to Cade Otton!
The Bucs, in their 23-16 loss to Minnesota to drag the Bucs down to an 0-3 start and a 2-10 record in their last 10 games, were dreadful on third downs Sunday.
How bad? Try 2-for-17. For the math-challenged, that’s just a hair under 12 percent. In other words, atrocious!
Bucs coach Todd Bowles said the entire offense is to blame, not just three or four guys.
“It was a little bit of everything.,” Bowles said. “I’ve said it again and again – I [have] to see what the penalty situation looks like.
“We [have] to see whether it’s playcalling, quarterback,
offensive line. It’s everybody included in that. We [have] to do better on third down.”
Well, geez. To Joe, it is obvious: It’s the old Nick Saban philosophy: Get the ball into the hands of your best players.
Joe has nothing against Cade Otton, but geez, does Zac Robinson really believe Otton is a better player than Godwin? Or better than Egbuka? Or Irving?
And if these guys are always covered to the point they cannot be targeted as much as Otton, maybe Robinson needs to head back to his whiteboard and start drawing up better schemes.
At least in years past, a putrid Bucs offense could be blamed on Byron Leftwich (the quarterback) or Josh McCown or Mike Glennon.
Joe doesn’t believe Baker Mayfield has fallen that far, but the way he has played in the past 12 games, it makes Joe wonder if Mayfield is already shot.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:42 pm
It’s like the offense has only one of five outcomes:
Bucky Up the Gut for 3.
Baker misses the throw.
The WR drops it.
A flag wipes it out.
The defense calls the play before the huddle breaks.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:42 pm
Paycheck Bowles and Gas Licht are to blame for this teams suck.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:43 pm
To be fair.. they were dreadful on EVERY down.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:49 pm
These 3 games show how much we lost when we lost Evans. And his replacement is no where to be found.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:49 pm
A little bit of good news for Bucs fans:
While Baker is out recovering from injury the team’s winning percentage won’t go any lower. This is rock bottom, and the worst that can happen is to keep getting kicked while they’re down. Those of you who’ve been following the Bucs since the 70’s or 80’s have seen this movie before. Time to warm up the popcorn and watch the show.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:49 pm
Funny posts Josh. You’re on a role!
It’s Daniels time! At least we have that to look forward to. When Baker is healthy, I hope he’s the water boy. 2-10 in the past 12, and Baker has been piss poor in 12 of those games.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:49 pm
Same BS every week This unit didn’t preform or that unit didn’t perform. If you are the HC then sit players who aren’t playing well, move coaches around or both. At some point, it has to be some consequences for under perform on your job
September 27th, 2026 at 10:49 pm
All we heard during camp was Godwin was on fire.EE and Hurst were on fire. So far everyone invisible. Was it because the were in underwear and were going against Bowles defense?
September 27th, 2026 at 10:49 pm
This is probably one of the best worst teams the bucs have ever had. What happened
To one of the best offensive lines in the game? Healthy too. And godwin. His best days
Are way behind him. Baker looks like a shell of his former seasons. Its a truly disgusting
Situation and there are no easy fixes. So many guys licht has drafted have just done nothing.
Barton,braswell.morrison, logan hall JTS and even the used to be stellar Cody mauch
Looks terrible. It s a shame we wasted our window on letting a guy coach who cant lead
And now its looking like another lost decade on the horizon.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:51 pm
Josh you nailed it.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:51 pm
The head clown trying to explain why we are watching a clown show.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:52 pm
The bigger thing I keep coming back to is the culture. At some point, poor performance has to be uncomfortable. You can’t screw up, hear “you’re good bro!,” and then move on like nothing happened.
You go 2-for-17 on third down with Bucky Irving, Emeka Egbuka and Chris Godwin, while Cade Otton keeps getting featured, and something is wrong. That is preparation, playcalling and execution. If guys keep making the same mistakes, that is what practice and film are supposed to fix.
And I’m tired of hearing Todd Bowles say some version of “we have to coach it better and play it better.” Fine. Then do it. I’m not talking about screaming at people or creating some miserable environment. I’m talking about accountability. Mistakes have to matter. Repeated mistakes have to lead to changes. Right now, I don’t see that. I see the same problems, the same answers and the same results over the last 2 seasons.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:52 pm
Bill in Seminole Says:
These 3 games show how much we lost when we lost Evans. And his replacement is no where to be found.
*************
Evans wouldn’t have been able to fix this, Bill. He isn’t the guy who installed the offensive system and he doesn’t call plays. He would’ve been as frustrated as everyone else. I’m glad he moved on, and hope he heals fast from whatever happened today.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:54 pm
Evans has been knocked out of 2 games already. He’s the 49ers injury problem now. Bet they are loving it Can’t count on him being in an entire game.
September 27th, 2026 at 10:55 pm
Plenty of blame to go around, but who didn’t know this OC was the wrong guy for the job? Plenty of people, including myself, questioned how Bowles and JL can replace Griz with another mediocre or worse OC. Wasn’t the whole point of firing Griz to get a better OC? What a freakin clown show this is! The proctologist office called. Time for the once a decade OBP enema!
September 27th, 2026 at 11:01 pm
Bowles is going to coach it better just be patient.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:03 pm
Hey Joe! Please call Licht a genius now!!!! He’s an idiot!!!!
Mayfield is toast!!!! He sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
September 27th, 2026 at 11:04 pm
evans got godwin paid and made emeka look like an early offensive rookie of year candidate.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:04 pm
I’m fing pissed off at this team 😂
Two years ago, I didn’t want the damn Toilet Bowl. I wanted to keep Coen. I defended this team, I stuck with them, and somehow here we are AGAIN, watching the same crap unfold.
My wife literally made me a brownie pirate ship to celebrate the Browns (victory), and somehow Baker managed to suck the joy right out of it. 😂
And today? Well… let’s just say the BUCCANEERS outfit my wife had on was so distracting that I missed the MOST of the first quarter the second quarter AND halftime. So at least something with this teams logo was giving me something to be excited about. 😂😂
Then we lose.
My wife is out here making all my Bucs fandom dreams come true while the actual Bucs are doing everything they can to ruin them.
I love this team. I hate this team. I’ll be back next week pissed off all over again.
GO BUCS. I guess. 😭🏴☠️
September 27th, 2026 at 11:04 pm
Baker is shot. And we will pay him $165 million. Had the nerve to tell us how we were disrespecting him. We are suckers.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:06 pm
Evans is looking smarter and smarter after each game.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:10 pm
The comedy keeps coming. The refs sucked all day long, but that is no excuse. Todd Bowles looks like he only cares about his next buffet, and Jason Licht is an Absolute joke.Cancel your season tickets TODAY!!!! Excuses, excuses, excuses.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:11 pm
Nothing is ever todds fault….going for it on 4th and long when you were 15 for 17not converting 3rd down? Azzinine!!!
September 27th, 2026 at 11:14 pm
Love evans but do you think Robinson would be getting him the ball? Gainwell and bucky need to split the workload. Hurst scored then never really had a chance after. Vikings were so effing aggressive and we kept doing deep drop backs with nothing special. Kenny was wide open then missed on a throw nothing after. This team has so much talent but why no smarts or creativity
September 27th, 2026 at 11:20 pm
Now…. Time for Mrs. Godwin to go off on twitter ( worked great in 2023).
September 27th, 2026 at 11:32 pm
I mean it’s pretty bad. Watching this team it looks like everything is so hard and it’s boring. Even old Bucs teams with Fitz Magic and Winston were more fun to watch. This offense is brutal.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:38 pm
I don’t care whether you like Baker or not, but he was running for his life all day. You aren’t going to complete much or make many yards when every time you go back to pass you are getting mugged.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:41 pm
Where’s ole StPete Maddie!? Or, OkieJim, Bonzai, and the rest of the whole crew!? Hell, old “OkieJim” warned about taking screenshots of posts (mine, in particular), and talking something about “username changes!?” He also said something about “in HIS professional career, that HE only dealt with objective information AND FACTS… He said that HE had to see the Big-Picture and not little bits and pieces, & etc.” Lmao. So, WHERE YA BEEN for these last 3-WEEKS, “OkieJim!?” At least, widdle ole StPete Maddie, has had THE GUTS to come back here, and Hope again for another WIN. When, YOU are still NOWHERE TO EVEN BE FOUND!? No, wait a minute… Since, “YOU” were the one talking about “username changes,” I guess YOU are one of the MANY “new ones,” that I’ve been seeing on here lately. Hahahahhh Lmaoooo. LoL. What a total LOSER. COWARD.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:45 pm
Dude hasn’t posted ONCE, since after the season had started.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:46 pm
Bill in Seminole Says:
September 27th, 2026 at 10:49 pm
These 3 games show how much we lost when we lost Evans. And his replacement is no where to be found.
———–
Unless they moved Evans to QB, he wasn’t going to fix the issues the Bucs are having right now.
Also, Evans is a first ballot HOF’er, you’re not going to just replace him like it’s nothing. It would be like saying, hey, we lost Warren Sapp, how come the next guy up isn’t another Warren Sapp.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:50 pm
If you’ve been watching the Jaguars, you know how badly the team screwed up by not promoting Coen as HC.
September 27th, 2026 at 11:54 pm
Honestly, the way that 14 points were given up…THAT, SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN! So, as bad as the offense was, that is a huge part of the blame.
The o-line is one of the worst I’ve seen in the NFL this year. The holding penalties completely overshadowed anything I could really get upset with Baker about this week. Did he miss a few passes? Sure. But was he under pressure on nearly every single down? Yes. Then when he or anyone else made some type of play, it was completely negated by another holding penalty. Of ourse, if they didn’t hold, who knows? We probably give another sack due to their inability to stay with their blocks. God, they stunk!
The defense played solid, except for Parrish blowing it on the coverage on Addison, but that was huge as well.
These receivers are not good, at all. Maybe we can package Godwin and McMillan into some kind of trade, but honestly, they hold no value to anyone at this point. No one would want them anyway. Godwin suits up, but you’d never know he was there since he never makes plays. And McMillan might as well retire since he can’t seem to get healthy and suit up.
I don’t know. It just seems as though this season is already over, and I’m really done talking about a team that no one wants to talk about anyway. At work on Monday, I’m praying that no one brings up my team since they know I’m a Bucs fan. I just want to crawl in a hole and disappear when people talk football now. I want to fast forward past this season because it’s just….embarrassing. SMH.
September 28th, 2026 at 12:04 am
And only us diehards on here are talking about this team. No one outside Tampa, and even then, probably not many, are talking about this team. No one cares about this team. It’s like they don’t even exist, or are viewed as an actual pro football team. Lol! They are just there. Lol!
September 28th, 2026 at 12:10 am
You hire a new offensive coordinator.
Suddenly everyone looks like trash
Is it really that complicated?
September 28th, 2026 at 12:52 am
The Bowel Movement says:
“It was a little bit of everything.,” Bowles said. “I’ve said it again and again –
Translation: I have freaking clue what’s wrong with this offense. And neither does Zack the Hack. So it is all his fault. Can’t possibly be mine.
September 28th, 2026 at 12:55 am
You know, the Glazers are billionaires and I ( like most of us) am not. But I would not trade places with them. At least I can show my face in public.
September 28th, 2026 at 1:04 am
Nor would I trade places with Mr. R of H. Look at how bad he has embarrassed himself by being a Glazer yes man.
If anyone would like me to explain that, just say so.
September 28th, 2026 at 1:04 am
Daniels time. And what do you think he’ll do? The next reincarnation of TB12? Might as well hold an open tryout for the QB spot. We’ll have more success with that.
September 28th, 2026 at 1:25 am
Munch is borderline idiot. Says the OL pass blocking not a problem and blaming it on TEs and RBs. Mauch had 2 holding calls, Barton had one, and Luke had one that erased an 85 yard TD to put us ahead. lol. Still thinks it’s Ottons fault ( who isn’t really a blocker anyway in our offense) or Durhams fault ( who graded one of the top blocking TEs in the league last year). Also pining for Ko to pass protect, which he doesn’t do. All in all, Munch has diarrhea of the mouth.
September 28th, 2026 at 1:25 am
Capt.Tim Says:
You hire a new offensive coordinator.
Suddenly everyone looks like trash
Is it really that complicated?
***************
I’ve been beating that drum since well before the preseason started.
Zac Robinson is trying to run Atlanta’s offense in Tampa without Bijan in the backfield. Bijan made Zac’s pile of garbage look far better than it really is. Even in a predictable offense Bijan can turn nothing into something, something into an explosive play and is a threat to house it every time he touches the ball.
Even with that kind of special player the Falcons still stank up the joint last season. It wasn’t from a lack of talent.