Todd Bowles And Rest
January 25th, 2023
To rest or not to rest?
So last year Bucs coach Todd Bowles said he didn’t want to run Bucco Bruce Arians’ no-risk-it; no-biscuit offense, despite the offense tearing up the NFL like few others. Why? One reason given is because Bowles thought that offense zapped the Bucs of stamina.
Not just the offense or the defense, but the special teams, too.
So this year the Bucs’ offense was just about the polar opposite of the Arians’ offense. And as it turned out, it didn’t matter if the Bucs’ defense was so fresh they could have run a marathon. The way the offense didn’t score, it didn’t matter how fresh dudes were.
(Joe always thought there was more to this than Bowles was letting on. On face value this stamina thing didn’t hold water. No team played more games than the Bucs in 2020 — remember, the Chiefs had a bye, the Bucs did not. And despite using the no-risk-it; no-biscuit, did the Bucs look remotely drained when they beat the snot out of the Chiefs in the Super Bowl?)
It seems Bowles may be backtracking on his goal of saving players’ legs.
As Jenna Laine of ESPN points out, Bowles wants more players in Tampa for OTAs than in years past, when Arians encouraged guys to take it easy.
Bowles said he wants to see a change in the offseason with more faces at voluntary workouts after the short playoff run — a slight deviation from former coach Bruce Arians’ philosophy, which was to rest veterans after a deep postseason run.
Joe isn’t sure what to say. Bowles was so concerned about keeping guys fresh that he wants them more involved in (voluntary) team workouts in the spring.
The more Joe thinks about it, the stamina angle for not keeping one of the NFL’s most dangerous offenses sure smells more and more like a smokescreen. For what, Joe isn’t sure.
January 25th, 2023 at 5:10 am
Dude is so full of crap I can smell him from here.
January 25th, 2023 at 5:26 am
We really don’t know exactly what Bowles wanted. for an offense. We just saw what Leftwich called and was executed by Brady and the offense. Teams with a good running game have the ability to hold onto the ball the ball longer. A good
example was when the Ravens took over the second half with the NFL version
of the ground and pound that left our defense beat up and gassed. Goodwin has gone on record saying that runs through the Wirfs, Mason side was a base play
that we didn’t use enough. It could be said we failed to develop a good running
because there more emphasis on RB’s in the short passing game and not on
improving the running game to sustain drives and eat up clock.
January 25th, 2023 at 5:51 am
Let’s face it, Toilet Bowles was way out of his comfort zone this year. He has an absolutely zero offensive scheme mindset, which is why he was relying on Dumbwich to call the offensive plays and was no doubt the sole reason Dumbwich was allowed to stay when he was supposed to be fired during the bye week.
Rest the players? What a bunch of BS. Look at the difference between this season and the last two when we had an offensive minded coach at the helm. I’m fairly certain the Bucs weren’t tired last season when we almost made it to back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. This rest the players pandering is indeed a smoke screen like Joe suggests; a smoke screen for Toilet Bowles’ poor leadership and poor coaching. Listening to his press conferences was like listening to a broken record, saying the same things over and over again, yet not making one change in how he coached the team from week to week. Insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I am still trying to figure out why he was handed this team after the blunder of a defensive call to end last year’s playoff run against the Rams. And the defense this year was pretty atrocious to say the least.
January 25th, 2023 at 6:14 am
It’s always a great idea to look at what worked in the recent past and then do the opposite in the immediate future
Todd is toast by the bye week
January 25th, 2023 at 6:22 am
Bucs’ offense had at least 4 major personnel changes this past year over what we fielded in 2020 & 2021.
o Marpet retired … replaced by a rookie (and others) who were no Marpets.
o Gronk retired … replaced by a rookie who’s no Gronk.
o Jensen injured at git-go … replaced by a 2nd year player who saw no action in his rookie year & was no Jensen.
o Antonio Brown gone … replaced by a veteran who couldn’t stay on the field due to injuries.
Bowles also said that ‘you do whatever works’ (paraphrasing) and I believe that he believes that. His problem was that nothing worked, and he had no clue how to fix it. This year’s team ran considerably less than the 2020 & 2021 teams because ‘it didn’t work’ (for a variety of reasons). The passing game was relegated far too often to short passes because the deeper stuff didn’t work very consistently.
Personally don’t think that Bowles had any REAL input on the offense; it was the Leftwich-Brady show with inputs from a host of ‘old coaches’ who couldn’t adapt to the new 2022 realities. The result IMO was an unmitigated disaster that Bowles was essentially a bystander on.
That right there tells me that he’s an ineffective HC, and I get why many want his head too. But he’s also an excellent DC and we’ve got much bigger problems right now on the defensive side of the ball (sounds bizarre huh). He very effectively rebuilt the Bucs’ defense in 2019 in 1 year, and I’m hoping that he can replicate that in 2023. Very good chance that he’ll only last 1 more year IMO (hey, life’s tough). But I’d rather see him rebuild this defense than the unknown who’s behind Door #2.
January 25th, 2023 at 6:28 am
Bowles always focusing on the wrong things like this. How about fixing the defense for once. This has to be one of the worst decisions the Bics have made. Bowles shouldn’t be a HC, he is what he is and under him we will be picking #1 on the draft soon.
January 25th, 2023 at 6:29 am
No risk it “Drained the team of stamina”.
OK.
So in his way, the team was drained of heart.
2023 could be one of the worst seasons since Radio Morris or Leeman Bennett.
Can Bowles sell RV’s?
January 25th, 2023 at 6:47 am
We have no idea of his strategy because frankly Bowles himself doesn’t know. He’s guessing on what might work but he’s shown no track record of executing at a high level. Frankly I question his defensive intelligence, all he does is blitz, if the blitz isn’t getting home, the entire defense is a sham. When it counted, teams literally ran it right up the middle of our defense and he didn’t know how to stop it.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:01 am
The Glazers must be on dope to keep this insanity going.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:02 am
The players under Bowles played like they were attending a funeral almost every single game this year. Zero energy. Zero enthusiasm. Zero fortitude.
That is a fireable offense. The Bowles confidence poll yesterday showed almost 90% of fans have little to No confidence in this guy. This wasn’t just a bad 3 or 4 game stretch. Every single week this team struggled to do the simplest things. Bowles is a lousy HC and a lousy motivator. I’d fire him in a heartbeat if I were the Glazers.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:10 am
Arians offense was prehistoric. It generated points because of top tier talent.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:26 am
I agree with DR because he said we should, right Goat and Rita?
January 25th, 2023 at 7:37 am
That’s the narrative being spewed Jeff. It worked 3 years in a row so the Bucs changed it. How’d that go ? Tired of hearing this garbage. Every team runs a lot of the same plays and all of them run the same routes. Now if you wanna say we need more motion and play action I’ll give you that. Nothing works if you have the worst run game in the NFL. Sequence of when you call plays also plays a major part. Lack of turnovers on D also severely affects PPG. Tired of all the geniuses repeating spittle. The Bengals beat the snot out of Buffalo throwing 5 yard passes and running the ball. Old school New England style.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:39 am
This post should make all you Bowles groupies happy. Ya know the 3 people on this site that vote confident or totally confident multiple times on Joe’s poles. I did a little digging and it turns out Bowles is not a 4 time loser, he is just a 3 time loser. In fact during his stint as interim coach at Miami he went 2-1-0. That makes him the most winning interim coach in Miami history. Joe can I go back and change my poll votes to Totally Confident??? The man is a winner and Bucs are lucky to have him. Shame on those 53 players and 49 coaches, the 2022 season was all their fault. Get rid of them ALL!!!
January 25th, 2023 at 7:42 am
Kentucky, that is also 9ers O in a jut shell. Shanahan runs the O to protect Purdy from causing a turnover. Dink & dunk and run the shat out of it.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:45 am
JOKE! Need to fire his stinking ass as well!
January 25th, 2023 at 7:56 am
No Balls Bowles Blowes. He sucked the life out of the team this year. Next year will be worse.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:56 am
The offense zapped the Bucs of wins.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:59 am
Agree with mg. Also half the front office are Glazers and none of them have a clue on whats going on. All they know is ticket sales when they plummet next season they won’t understand why.
January 25th, 2023 at 8:01 am
If we can’t get it done with the team we had this year, we sure won’t with whatever team we field next year.
We owe Brady almost 60 mil whether he plays or not…..think about that.
January 25th, 2023 at 8:02 am
BA’sredpen@ not sure I agree with that. Bucs 21-3 to Ravens at the half, D gave up 25 points and over 200 yds passing 2nd half. Dallas, D.gave up 18 (lucky it wasn’t 24) points 1st half and more points the second, 27 first downs. They averaged 33 points against them on teams over 500. The O did suck but the suckage was a total team effort.
January 25th, 2023 at 8:05 am
He’s just another dinosaur that doesn’t understand the new NFL.
January 25th, 2023 at 8:19 am
Fire Bowles !
He is a failure with a history of failure as HC
January 25th, 2023 at 8:39 am
Well, Brady took the offseason and the preseason off, the offense looked out of sync, and really regressed. All the new pieces they brought in likely got little work with the GOAT. Makes sense from that standpoint. Naturally, Bowles speaks in riddles, and context from Jenna stories is sketchy at best, so maybe Bowles is talking about book club.
January 25th, 2023 at 8:50 am
@D.R. You made some excellent points about the challenges to our offensive line. However I would nitpick a bit. I think Mason was a genuine upgrade over Cappa. Donavan Smith was hurt virtually the entire year, our star tackle Wirfs was also fighting the injury bug.
IMHO this year was the perfect storm. Personnel changes, injuries, coaching changes, Brady’s divorce and ALL of HIS missed time and yes IMO a head coach that is stuck in the 60’s or 70’s.
I’m sure this is where we part D.R. lol. I loved Air Coryell, I suspect you preferred the Steel Curtain. I believe we do agree on one thing. There is more than ONE way to win and the very best way is to have balance and play complimentary football.
At the end of the day though I just believe you dance with what brought you to the dance…an AMAZING offense with a good defense.
Given as you point out all the questions on the D I’m not sure we can plan on the original SB team’s style of play.
How about this…do as you suggest and have Bowles make sure his defense is in order…bring in a highly respected OC and perhaps Baker Mayfield. I do not believe the OL is the disaster many believe. If Jensen gets healthy along with Donavan and Wirfs, Mason was a stud at RG leaving just the LG to fill. We have several promising candidates and should even have a little depth IF everybody can get healthy.
So we IMPROVE DRAMATICALLY on ST’s…we already have one of the best if not the best punter in the league…field a quality offense…complimented by a stellar defense. Unlike many here I absolutely have not given up on next year!
January 25th, 2023 at 9:13 am
Ne fan
The 49er dink and donk offense has guys getting schemed open all day. Pre snap motion on majority of plays. Multi back sets. Fullback and tons of playaction. We do none of that. We just line up and try to win match ups.
January 25th, 2023 at 10:05 am
zapped them of STAMINA?
They averaged over 30 points a game for 2 years.
If they had done this year, they would have been like 14-3.
What the hell, Todd?
January 25th, 2023 at 10:06 am
Bowles is in over his head !
January 25th, 2023 at 10:17 am
Bowles is simply stupid.
January 25th, 2023 at 11:17 am
Bucs56@ you are 100% correct. KC does it as well.
January 25th, 2023 at 11:27 am
Not a good head coach. 20 months until there is promise again.
January 25th, 2023 at 11:45 am
StPete … ‘There is more than ONE way to win and the very best way is to have balance and play complimentary football.’
Everything varies opponent to opponent IMO StPete, but overall your summation is a solid goal to strive for. I haven’t given up on next year either, but I have very low expectations. Priority #1 in my book is to ‘get right’ as best we can (salary CAP, personnel, coaching, etc) and then re-evaluate for 2024.
OR we could do what supposed fans like NEfan & Goatfarmer recommend and fire all the coaches and then … oh wait, they have no clue what happens after that. Nor do they care. Both of them (and many like them) came onboard in 2020 when we won the Super Bowl & don’t remember the ‘lean years’ like some of us do.
January 25th, 2023 at 11:57 am
Rita thinks Todd is onto something here. OTAs aren’t about wearing guys out, they’re about getting in reps with new teammates, early installs of new concepts, building camaraderie. Better OTA attendance demonstrates commitment to winning and improving.
Rita thinks Todd is right to want a more modern offense.
January 25th, 2023 at 12:32 pm
It’s simple:
With Bowles, the top priority is, as Head Coach, things are going to be done “the Bowles’ way.”
Problem:
Things were already being done the right way with Bruce Arians as the head Coach. He (Bruce Arians) proved it. Super Bowl In 2020; Brady the top quarterback with 43 touchdowns and the most yards-passing in 2021; maximum potential gleaned from an elite offense.
If Bowles repeated “the right way,” he’d just be seen as just repeating and copying the “Arians way.”
What was left for Bowles only was “the wrong way,” with which to “stand-out,” assert his authority and be seen as doing things “the Bowles way;” plus, “the right way,” is infinitely harder to do, light years beyond Bowles’ capability.
Note well: winning games isn’t even a remote priority-consideration; Bowles would rather bench Brady and Evans with a tied game in the second quarter than end the year with a winning record, 9-8 season: an unforgivable irresponsibility to the fans (who ensure the multi-billion dollar value of the team).
“Funny” fixing the O-line wasn’t even mentioned on the Bowles-to-do-list for off-season mandates.
But that would bring-up that pesky “winning games” thing again.
January 25th, 2023 at 1:23 pm
Todd. Blowes.
Idjut.
Bucs fans are doomed.
January 25th, 2023 at 2:38 pm
Oh come on Joe, you know exactly what to say.
The claim that running hurry up / no risk it was leaving the team too tired was 100% BS.
You know it. I know it. Bowles knows it. Everyone knows it.
January 25th, 2023 at 4:13 pm
FIRE TODD
January 25th, 2023 at 5:29 pm
Zap their stamina to score points and be aggressive on game day. YET Cole Beasley retired because they were practicing to exhaustion. Practicing too hard and resulting in the garbage product being n game day. Terrible coaching is the only explanation
January 25th, 2023 at 6:22 pm
After reading more on the offensive problems, I have become less negative on Bowles. Bowles was in favor of more innovation and better schemes on offense. The run and passing game. He wanted them to get ideas from the college game. The offensive coaches didn’t listen to him, which is why most of them were fired.
They were Arians yes men who were blindly attached to a playbook and schemes that were archaic and years old. They didn’t want to adjust that they no longer had the perfect execution that came with an all pro line and Gronk/AB who were vital to Evans/Godwin working. NFL defenses had the old Arians offense figured out and the pieces were no longer there to make it work. Brady and the talent glossed over what was an outdated offense that needs perfect execution to work during the superbowl run and last year.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:14 pm
A disaster in the making. Welcome to the New Bucs reality.
So you throw out a good Offense, because the D gets tired. But when a fresh D got skewered for many TDs against the Rams in 2021, it was because of the Offense? As in the last words of the “bridge over the river Kwai”, all I can say when looking at the upcoming Bowles part deux, is “Madness…madness…madness”.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:16 pm
IE…please…LOL. Bowles was totally over his head. All your speculation is poppycock. Did the Offense need some new wrinkles? Maybe. Assuming 30 ppg isn’t enough. But still… to throw it out? It is insanity to throw out something that might be a little worn, but isn’t broken.
January 25th, 2023 at 7:28 pm
Why do you write about this Guy like her is a good coach
Bowles was horrible this year and his last 4 years in NY
HORRIBLE
He has done nothing but blame everyone else
January 25th, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Maybe the team was tired because Practice is so weak by this Coach
Raheem had the same problem tired team with no drive
January 25th, 2023 at 7:57 pm
Hope we can find a great OC who can maximize this talented offense and let bowels focus on defense a little more.
January 25th, 2023 at 9:15 pm
Mark2001, a little worn out? Apperently it was so worn out that Tomlin and the Steelers knew our plays because it was the same stuff that Leftwich was running when he was the Steelers QB running Arians playbook in Pittsburgh.
The only reason we had 30ppg was because we had Gronk and AB to occupy defenses. Without them, it was just Evans and Godwin with defenses covered. Arians offense needed perfect execution with 4 targets. We only had two targets and no run game. Offensive changes were needed and
Bowles messed up by not firing Leftwhich after the Ravens game even though management gave him the green light.
January 25th, 2023 at 10:14 pm
You got Rooney ruled tampa, congats
January 26th, 2023 at 12:12 am
Bowles is in full on CYA mode!
The only faces not at OTA’s were veterans who didn’t need to work on the playbook and contract holdouts