Breaking Down Todd Bowles
January 17th, 2019
Bucs DC Todd Bowles.
So what kind of a defensive coach did the Bucs get in Todd Bowles, the new defensive coordinator?
Based on the words from a credentialed member of the Jets’ press corps, a fine defensive coach.
Joe talked to Emory Hunt. The “Czar of the Playbook” is is a college analyst, a rising star among #NFLDraftMedia and a member of the CBS Sports team. Hunt is in St. Petersburg this week to cover East-West Shrine Game practices and the game itself, to be televised live on NFL Network at 3 p.m. Saturday from the Fruitdome.
Joe asked Hunt for a brief breakdown on Bowles for Bucs fans.
“He had some solid defenses in New York,” Hunt said. “I felt it wasn’t his fault that the Jets didn’t have success so I thought that he didn’t get the right opportunity. I don’t think he should have gotten fired. I think [the Jets] probably should have made a change at OC because the defense was solid. He was developing guys and considering that it was a M*A*S*H unit at one point in the season, losing guys left and right yet still they were competitive.
“I think the guy [the Bucs] are going to get is a guy that understands talent, No. 1. That understands depth. That understands how to use depth and can maximize what he has on the roster in any facet of ways.”
Bowles is a hybrid-defense kind of a guy, which backs up what Hunt says.
Joe hopes Bowles can develop talent as Hunt suggested. The Bucs have spent a lot of draft capital on corners the past three years and have little to show for it.
Can Bowles transform Ryan Smith and Vernon Hargreaves and M.J. Stewart and Carlton Davis, you ask? Joe thinks he will be fine given time.
Joe strongly encourages readers who like to monitor the draft to follow Hunt on Twitter or his YouTube.com channel, both of which are full of solid information, player breakdowns and interviews.
January 17th, 2019 at 8:11 am
Love Bowles philosophy of to adapt and morph defenses to whatever works against your opponent
Would like to see more 3-4 and less of McCoy
January 17th, 2019 at 8:24 am
Jets “defense was solid”?
Sure, it was better than the Buc d, but the Jets were 29th in the league in points allowed.
January 17th, 2019 at 8:37 am
These former draft picks will be making plays in the secondary. Thats what happens when you press and have pressure on the qb. Not exactly breaking news. Yes they will get beat their share but we’ve already seen that 100 percent of the time in mike smiths d. At least playing aggressively gives you a chance for turnovers, not just hoping a wr fumbles on the tackle. Hope has arrived.
January 17th, 2019 at 8:40 am
Lubby, Lot of variables to having 29th ppg. Did the offense turn the ball over and give the opp a short field? Pick 6’s go against your ppg? special team td’s go against your ppg. it’s kind of like the Bucs top 5 offense.
January 17th, 2019 at 8:44 am
Oh so I read where all the Defensive and Offensive coaching assts are totally new. Good for BA, it will do a world of good to get all of KLUELESSKOETTERS coaching buddies out like HOKE. Best thing i’ve read all week is a clean sweep of the coaches. Now he needs to fire KOETTERS BFF the equipment manager and his staff since they bring now value except ping pong playing distractions to the locker room and the players don’t trust them.
January 17th, 2019 at 8:44 am
@Emory Hunt … ““I think the guy [the Bucs] are going to get (Bowles) is a guy that understands talent, No. 1. That understands depth. That understands how to use depth and can maximize what he has on the roster in any facet of ways.” Music to my ears.
Lubby Smith makes an excellent point though. Jets defense gave up 441 points last season (#29) and the Bucs gave up 464 points (#31). Not a whole bunch of difference right there. That said however, Todd Bowles was the HC, not the DC … that position was held by Kacy Rodgers (who’s now OUR DLine coach this year). The Jets finished 4-12 (worse than us); surely nothing to brag about.
So the question that keeps running through my mind is, “If Bowles understands talent as well as Hunt says, WHY did the Jets offense AND defense go downhill so much after his first (2015) season when they went 10-6? Jets scored a lot fewer points in subsequent years & gave up a lot more points in 2016, 2017 & 2018. Wondering now if Jets ownership & management didn’t provide adequate talent for him to develop. Hmmm, sounds all too familiar.
January 17th, 2019 at 8:46 am
They may need to explore CB in the mid rounds of the draft imho. The first two selections should be devoted to either DT or DE. I think we may have a quality safety in Adams he came on really good to end the season. I can’t say it enough though we need to Dexter Lawrence and pair him up with Vea and maybe look into getting another high level Safety on defense in the second round too. RB should come out of freezer agency. I’m thinking TJ Yeldon personally. I got a hunch RoJo will turn into a little more as well. I say Barber sticks around as well to complete the running game. I just hate to see us draft more OL but a RT may be necessary or a RG one.
January 17th, 2019 at 9:01 am
“How many more slow corners and safteys do we draft this year?
Gump wiffed on 6 secondary last year?
We will have more corners on our roster than the draft combine”
Kobe Faker
January 17th, 2019 at 9:13 am
I agree with Kobe Faker
– we may have invested in the defensive backfield, but there is NO speed back there, technique is good until the WR runs right by you. Fasting corner is probably Ryan Smith but probably has the worst technique. Go get Greedy in the first if he runs 4.4 and then get Gerald Willis from the U as a penetrating DT to line up next to Veta
January 17th, 2019 at 9:19 am
Stay the hell away from more CBs in the draft…..pick up a decent FA to replace Grimes.
Use our draft capital on the trenches….
We can add a CB, RB & WR (perhaps John Brown)
We need to resign Hump…..and dump Djax
GMC?……..would have to take a big cut…..probably won’t, so trade him.
January 17th, 2019 at 9:19 am
Rashan Gary….@5
January 17th, 2019 at 9:20 am
Let’s hope Bowles is a better coach when Arians it the HC……
I do believe several teams wanted him……
January 17th, 2019 at 9:35 am
Would rather lose game blitzing and giving up big play than allowing opposing QB’s to complete over 70% of passing and marching down the field.
January 17th, 2019 at 9:43 am
TexBuc Says:
January 17th, 2019 at 9:35 am
Would rather lose game blitzing and giving up big play than allowing opposing QB’s to complete over 70% of passing and marching down the field.
.
.
.
You should be happy then because the Bucs have been doing both the past 12 years
January 17th, 2019 at 9:47 am
Jason & Kobe … Don’t think that we need to draft more corners this year (too many other higher priority NEEDS right now such as OLine, DLine, RB & LB). What we do desperately need is to pick up a veteran outside lock-down corner in FA (personally wouldn’t mind seeing us sign Ronald Darby, although that comes with some risk for obvious reasons). Same situation with Safety IMO … Evans & Whitehead both have talent, but we desperately need a veteran Safety to pair with them (personally like Tyrann Mathieu or possibly Landon Collins). With the young talent we’ve got at safety, wouldn’t be surprised to see 3 of them on the field at the same time more often.
Linebacker is the position group that we’re hurting in right now IMO. LVD’s solid, but Beckwith concerns me (still convinced that there’s more going on there than we’re being told). I’m not at all certain that we’ll re-sign Kwon given our salary CAP situation & him coming off of injury. Plus Todd Bowles defenses seem to favor bigger MLBs (in the 245-250 lb range it looks like). So do I BTW (give me a Brian Urlacher at 6’4″ & 258 lbs or a Ray Lewis at 6’1″ & 245 lbs anytime).
Could see us drafting a DLineman high (someplace in top 2 rnds) as well as an OLineman up there this year. RB & LB will likely also be drafted high (Rnds 3 & 4) I think. After that it’s a crapshoot anyways.
January 17th, 2019 at 9:50 am
@TBBF … “Let’s hope Bowles is a better coach when Arians is the HC.” He did quite well under Arians out in Arizona. Lots of guys I think make much better coordinators than they do HCs. Dirk Koetter was one, and I suspect that Todd Bowles may be another. That said though, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bowles become our HC when Coach Arians decides to really hang it up.
January 17th, 2019 at 10:02 am
darin
i agree….the CB’s we have on the roster will finally receive competent coaching and will be playing in a scheme that fits their strengths…..
@ #5 draft ed oliver….a player who can play DT & DE…34 or 43…..
#REALISTKNOWSNOTHING!!!!…GO BUCS!!!!
January 17th, 2019 at 10:03 am
“It was, It is and It will always will be about the QB”
Wise poster
“Todd Bowles was in a no win situation at the Jets. Bowles GM was Maccaran who drafted Chris Hackenburg to be QB for Bowles. jets waited 2 years and Hack wasnt good enough to EVER PLAY A SNAP IN THE NFL
GM Macc started gutting his 10-6 team where last year he finally drafted a promising QB in Darnold, but the team had no talent leftover”
Kobe Faker
January 17th, 2019 at 10:22 am
Jason still can’t draft
January 17th, 2019 at 10:25 am
CB’s have to stay healthy and be on the field to develop!!!!!!!!!!!! And keep fixing the incomplete D-line!!!!!!! too bad the defense was not allowed to start switching over to 3-4 because of higher ups wanting to build around gmc!!!!!!!! Huge mistake!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 17th, 2019 at 10:26 am
Reminds me of a former coach. Great defense, not so good offense.
January 17th, 2019 at 10:57 am
Altered
You must not understand the difference between a read and react defense versus a an aggressive blitz defense. We have only had Schiano era as a blitzing defense.
January 17th, 2019 at 11:06 am
@ Defense Rules I feel your take I just feel we need more corners for special teams. LB will do on special teams as well and we depth there as well
January 17th, 2019 at 11:27 am
realist
the CB’s were on the field for 2years with smitty and never developed!!!!!!!….they actually regressed and got worse!!!!!!!
its a shame the bucs kept smitty for so long!!!!!!….imo, he shouldve been fired after the 2016 season not just last year!!!!!!!
the dline is more “fixed” than you think it is!!!!…..the scheme was broken and outdated!!!!!!
the biggest mistake was retaining dirk and his incompetent staff after the 2017 season!!!!!!!
now that the “house cleaning” is complete, we will have a chance to witness REAL coaching and REAL development at OBP!!!!!!!!
#REALISTKNOWSNOTHING!!!!…GO BUCS!!!!
January 17th, 2019 at 12:13 pm
@DR
Both defenses were bad in 2019. The financial analyst in me wanted to nerd out a bit though and thought this was interesting:
Jets were 13th in yards given up per drive.
Bucs were 22nd
Jets were 23d in points given up per drive
Bucs were 30th
There’s also another stat they measure: Drive Success Rate – or the percentage of down series the defense gives up 1st downs / TDs. So if you’re at 66%, that means 34% of the time you got a stop immediately on the opponents first set of downs (i.e. 3 and out or a turnover before they get a 1st down or TD).
The Jets ranking in this category:
13th (~30% stops)
The Bucs?
29th (~25% stops)
The Jets also averaged less time of possession per game by about a minute vs the Bucs. So their D had to deal with more. Was typically down early due to an inept offense. Etc.
And regardless they were still better than the Bucs across the board. This is encouraging.
January 17th, 2019 at 12:13 pm
damnit meant 2018 first sentence.
January 17th, 2019 at 1:24 pm
@ TexBuc
It’s not like Schiano was great at blitzing either.
He tried to stunt every other time almost and the ball was in the Endzone by the time the stunt got home.
I’m ready for a defense that isn’t Vanilla in terms of WHERE the pressure is coming from.
If you don’t confuse the QB EVER, his job isn’t that hard.