Requires the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to make a training change have been amplified when the staff squandered a transparent path to the playoffs and completed the 2025 season with seven losses in 9 video games. With the marketing campaign now full, coach Todd Bowles mentioned he has not but met with staff possession and made a public case as to why he ought to retain his job.
4 groups canned their coaches within the first 24 hours following the top of the common season. Bowles mentioned his observe document speaks for itself as to why he mustn’t be part of that group.
“All I can do is coach and be myself,” Bowles mentioned on Monday. “I’ve earned the possibility. I’ve gained three straight division titles, so that claims rather a lot, so far as I am involved. However I do not actually have a message for followers apart from true followers are true followers. We’ll attempt to do our greatest to go on the market and win for them. They will really feel how they really feel. That is not the coach’s drawback. The coach’s drawback is to make the staff higher. That is all I am trying ahead to.”
The second half of the season eradicated a number of the goodwill Bowles constructed with the Buccaneers fanbase all through the prolific three-year run to start out his tenure. Tampa Bay opened at 6-2 however completed the marketing campaign under .500 after rattling off two separate shedding streaks of at the very least three video games. It gained simply twice since October.
In accordance with CBS Sports activities’ NFL insider Jonathan Jones, the shedding season is unlikely to spell the top of the Bowles period in Tampa. The Buccaneers awarded Bowles a three-year contract extension final offseason. Adjustments to the assistant teaching employees, nonetheless, could possibly be in retailer for a franchise that seeks to get again to the postseason as rapidly as subsequent yr.
“I perceive their frustrations, and I perceive our personal frustrations, as properly,” Bowles mentioned. “It is properly warranted and properly warranted throughout the constructing, as properly.”
Causes for optimism as Bowles enters Yr 5
Barring an ouster within the coming days, Bowles will gear up for his fifth yr on the helm in the hunt for a bounce-back run to the NFC South title. The division’s shortcomings needs to be a supply of optimism for Buccaneers followers, who simply watched their staff rattle off three consecutive NFC South titles. The Carolina Panthers gained the division this season with a shedding document, and neither them nor the Atlanta Falcons or New Orleans Saints undertaking as powerhouses within the speedy future.
Bowles has taken Tampa Bay to the playoffs as a rule, and together with his present roster building, he needs to be squarely within the combine to take action once more in 2026.
The offense has the entire instruments it must run the division with a younger and gifted supporting solid round Baker Mayfield. Vast receivers Emeka Egbuka, Tez Johnson and Jalen McMillan give the Buccaneers a youthful trio, and if Mike Evans re-signs and Chris Godwin stays wholesome subsequent yr, they need to spherical out one of many NFL’s high receiving items. Standout operating again Bucky Irving can even be again.
