No Changes On Defense For Todd Bowles
October 29th, 2024
Todd Bowles, NextGen Stats vary greatly.
Todd Bowles admitted in his day-after press conference Monday that things need to change on the Bucs defense. Hoo boy, do they ever.
However, what is not changing for now is personnel. For now. And what certainly will not change is the guy calling the defensive plays.
That man is Todd Bowles.
Bowles is not giving up play-calling duties on defense, he said. And while he hinted personnel changes could be coming, they won’t on Monday in Kansas City.
“I’ll continue to call plays,” Bowles said.
When he was asked if there are personnel changes coming Monday night, he didn’t answer the question directly but said only a handful of plays need correcting.
“What’s not happening is we have about four or five plays a game where we either miss a tackle or we’re not dropping where we’re supposed to and we give up a big play,” Bowles said.
Four or five plays a game? Seems like four or five plays a possession.
Either Bowles doesn’t want to kill his defenders publicly or he is spinning. There are more than four or five plays in a game where Bucs defenders get caught with their pants down.
For example, last week against the Crows, NextGen Stats had the Crows averaging 5.3 yards of separation per pass. Lamar Jackson threw 22 passes.
Joe may not be a math guy, but Joe knows “four or five” isn’t 22.
And that’s just counting pass plays. The NextGen Stats that Joe referenced did not refer to runs.
October 29th, 2024 at 12:19 am
4 down linemen Todd.
October 29th, 2024 at 12:20 am
This guy is so delusional. Please fire him so we can get a real coach in here.
October 29th, 2024 at 12:43 am
I dunno Joe, I’m pretty sure Kancey and Braswell dropping into coverage half a dozen times each week means theyre primed for some multiple INT games.
Opponents will never see it coming! WRs will be so confused they’ll just stop running their routes. I’m just sure of it.
October 29th, 2024 at 1:01 am
Next time trot him out there with the red nose, the orange side head hair tufts, frilly collar, and pink slip. Chiefs 52 Bucs less than 52. Another national television humiliation.
Lovie Smith. Mike Smith. Meet your match.
October 29th, 2024 at 1:02 am
Todd is good. Todd is great. Todd bless the Bucs.
October 29th, 2024 at 1:19 am
Better win some games then
October 29th, 2024 at 1:27 am
Stop making off ball DTs a thing. It’s not funny anymore.
October 29th, 2024 at 1:36 am
How disappointing… It seems he’s trying to learn his lessons, being more aggressive, passing more, going for two. Misguided, but refreshing in some aspects. Seeing this is just stupid. His stubbornness will lead to the demise of this team.
October 29th, 2024 at 3:45 am
I love all these armchair coaches with no experience at the job, and on a site like this. I can think of a bunch of things to say to the coach. But what the hell do I know even if I did play on defense with the coach. The guy had a great coach in Bruce Arians and learned a lot from them. I’m sure the people on this site think he should have been fired at some point too. Bugger off
October 29th, 2024 at 3:45 am
Expect more of the same. His history induce will double down and repeat, repeat, repeat. It’s all he knows. It’s his defense and that’s that. At one time it worked. As long as you have weak DBs, no edge, and Britt his defense will get gashed. I’ve never seen such a disparity between starters and backups ever. They Bucs drafting and talent acquisition has been exposed.
October 29th, 2024 at 3:47 am
Nobody is surprised that Todd Bowles is slow to make adjustments, even when they’re desperately needed. Will he trot KJ Britt out there the whole season? We’ll see.
October 29th, 2024 at 4:03 am
Kj Britt will be in all season, barring injury, suspension, or he decides to pull a Diva White.
October 29th, 2024 at 4:09 am
The obese fans need to stfu.
Bowles defense beat Mahomes, Brees and Rodgers in the way to the Super Bowl.
Detroit has only lost 1 game this year. To the Bucs.
The Ravens are a legit Super Bowl contender. We had them until Mike Evans dropped that TD and Baker threw the INT.
I am so thankful Bowles is our coach.
Our players never give up. Unlike most NFL teams!
October 29th, 2024 at 4:23 am
And there is the problem ladies and gentlemen.
Its the mentality, its the philosophy.
We wont see something different because the Coach thinks there is not a problem with the scheme. There is not a problem with how we play soft zones with 10 yds off. There is not a problem with the Defense.
He just thinks that the problem is 4 or 5 plays per game.
Not the 500 yds we give up constantly. Not the Bent but not break philosophy where you let them go up and down the field and your plan is that there will be a moment that you will make a play.
So there it is. Everything is good. Everything is working. The only issue is 4 or 5 plays. Good to koow.
Go Bucs
October 29th, 2024 at 4:32 am
Four, or five plays a series is more like it. When .500 talent meets .500 coaching you get 4-4. Simple math.
October 29th, 2024 at 4:33 am
It makes no sense for this team to regress game to game, year to year in the same system. Todd’s D is predicated on getting to the QB, if that doesn’t happen, everything on the backend fails. The secondary can’t be left to defend for too long. We don’t have a consistent pass rush. That’s the Achilles heal to this D. When it works it’s great, when it doesn’t it’s putrid.
October 29th, 2024 at 5:04 am
Bowles is right in that ‘Our guys are our guys’. We’re stuck with the personnel that we have unless SOMEONE decides to act before the Nov 5th trade deadline & bring in some quality starters. I’m not holding my breath that’ll happen.
Unfortunately for us (and most likely for Todd ultimately) our current personnel by-and-large don’t match the scheme he believes in so deeply. He’s making compromises & adjustments all over the place, to the degree that his defensive scheme itself has been totally compromised. It’s probably unrecognizable to him at this point.
Go back & take a look at the 2019 defensive results (his 1st year with us). That’s essentially where this defense is at right now IMO (we’re surrendering 26.6 PPG right now for a #28 Points Allowed ranking). The results were EVEN WORSE that year (we gave up 28.1 PPG enroute to a #29 ranking). Back then we had quite a few new (1st & 2nd year) defensive pieces learning Todd’s defense (sound familiar?), and the rest transitioning from a 4-3 to a 3-4. We also had an offense making a lot of turnovers (41) … mostly in our 9 losses (29), including SEVEN Pick-6 INT returns (kinda inflates the defense’s Points Allowed numbers).
I tend to think that Todd’s playing the ‘long game’ right now, believing that 2024 will be a replay of 2023. Last year we were 4-7 after 11 games but finished with 5 wins in our last 6 games for a 9-8 record. Bucs COULD win 6 of our last 7 games this year, since all but one of those opponents have losing records. Finishing with a 10-7 record would require us to be 4-6 at the BYE, which is where we’d be with 2 more losses. That MIGHT get us into the playoffs (as Wild Card fodder?).
Problem for us (and for TB) is that we’re NOT building a defense for the future. Close to half of this starting defense probably won’t even be on the team next year. I still think that his best bet would be to turn the DC duties over to George Edwards and let’s see what he can do with these personnel.
October 29th, 2024 at 5:22 am
just beat kc in kc and stop the bleeding…
and it will carry over to a win at home vs. san fran…
just stop the bleeding…or bleed out right up to the bye week at 4-6…
the falcons and cousin kirk have our number, for whatever reason…
other than that we’ve beaten some good teams…
also payton has our number and basically always has…
i swear i think he gave dirk koetter a wedgie and 2 purple nurples during a post game coaches handshake at ray jay once 🙂
and let’s not forget baltimore is a really really good football team…
i’m starting to think we can beat kc and sf…if bowles hasn’t lost the locker room…
we are injured af…so gotta consider that…
we have needs at: wr, ilb/edge…….and could use dean back asap…
losing 3 of the last 4…yes the sky is falling…but maybe bowles can pick up where he left off before this 2nd quarter of the season – get his smile back and his slight swag – and pull some victories out of his hat…
heck, someone’s gotta be positive up in here
October 29th, 2024 at 5:56 am
I think he has a problem being HC and DC at the same time.
October 29th, 2024 at 6:10 am
Todd Bowles is holding us back… the offense is elite & the defense has HOF caliber players and pro bowlers. There is no excuse. I understand lack of pass rush sure but there is other teams without a pass rush and they’re not historically bad like we are. I mean seriously how many 500 yard games does a Bowles defense allowed. If anything he’s so consistently bad that I expect to allow a 500 yard game more than I do us stopping someone.
October 29th, 2024 at 6:13 am
JOE MAC is really Todd Bowles . Sorry Todd it’s time for you to go.
October 29th, 2024 at 6:44 am
Bowles is like Dirk Koetter in his final season as the Bucs skipper when he was defending Mike Smith and said that there would be no changes and then after the Chicago and ATL debacles suddenly it was announced that Smith was launched. I am going to guess that Koetter got a call from someone who signed his paycheck and said Smith had to go. I am guessing Todd is stubborn like Koetter and he certainly not going to relieve himself of play calling duties unless he gets a call from higher ups at OBP and changes are forces concerning either play calling or personnel issues. If Todd starts Britt again he is simply asking to get fired at the bye week.
October 29th, 2024 at 6:57 am
We are seeing the consequences of missing high draft picks on defense. The Bucs are bad as a result of not hitting on Logan Hall JTS and Devin White. The front seven is always more important than the DB room. Bucs are feeling their drafting failures this season bad.
October 29th, 2024 at 7:34 am
Britt can rotate in and out with Devin White but not jj Russell? There’s nothing wrong with the scheme, nothing wrong with the players, it’s everything wrong with the coach so please please don’t make any changes. He’s been calling plays for 3 years why change. He’s been running the scheme for 5years. Run defense was unstoppable and top of the league at one time. With FREE AGENTS JPP SHAQ AND SUH GUYS IN THEIR 30’s he doesn’t have to coach up. It is correct this same defense won a Super Bowl but gets shredded every year even the Super Bowl year
He’s a dinosaur and his time has passed like bill Belichick
October 29th, 2024 at 8:18 am
Much harder to work around rookies and weak players on defense vs. offensive players.
October 29th, 2024 at 8:26 am
I caught part of his interview on WDAE while in the car yesterday, & it wasn’t very good. It was actually, pretty embarrassing. Made me kinda feel bad for the guy, because it really was that bad. There are no answers.
October 29th, 2024 at 8:37 am
The reality is this is still a MAJOR rebuild that’s going to need another whole entire year or two. And, that is why I believe we need to go ahead and start moving people. The Chiefs just traded for depth at LB for a guy with just 2-sacks this season… JTS!? RWhite (to the Cowboys, or just whoever)!? Next off-season… Vea, Dean, Mike Evans (wrong side of 30, expensive, and no on the ‘right’ timeline). Continue developing all the young guys on Defense (maybe another move or two), a heavy Defense oriented draft in 2025, and improve through free agency, tank & make a run at Manning in 2026, & WR (JSmith OSU would be sweet) in 2027.
October 29th, 2024 at 8:38 am
The Bowles and Licht experience is like riding on a cruise ship. Both are fun until you realize you are about to careen over a waterfall. All are too slow to adjust course.
Has Licht ever made a needed trade before the trade deadline? Has Bowles ever adjusted his overly complex D to suit his available players? Meanwhile, DBs are always injured because he continues to slam them in offensive lineman to generate a pass rush, while the likes of JTS appear to be Ironman backpeddling into coverage
October 29th, 2024 at 8:42 am
I said the same exact thing as soon as I heard him say that is only like 4-5 plays a game LoL. I laughed SO HARD. And, that’s when I started feeling kinda bad for him, cause you just KNOW this thing is ooooverrrr.
October 29th, 2024 at 8:55 am
“A Bucs Fan” – Yeah, 💯… I was just telling a guy this last Friday Night, while at the CCC vs St. Frances High School Game! KILLING US.
October 29th, 2024 at 9:02 am
No personnel changes and no playcalling changes… what’s the definition of insanity again?
October 29th, 2024 at 9:33 am
I sincerely hope the Glazers have already started their search for a new HC next year, provided we keep Cohen as OC. We are never going to be more than 5 or 600 under Bowles. His D is going to keep us down despite having a high-powered Offense.
October 29th, 2024 at 9:49 am
No changes…same results!
October 29th, 2024 at 10:36 am
Get ready. For KC to put up 600 yards in the first 3 quarters before pulling their starters in the 4th. Please be merciful networks. No scenes of Taylor Swift celebrating.
October 29th, 2024 at 12:07 pm
His stubbornness is leading him right to the unemployment line. Just wait and see.
October 29th, 2024 at 1:58 pm
Been a loser at HC his whole resume….
Never deserved a second chance…
Easily replaceable and soon forgotten…
October 29th, 2024 at 5:58 pm
There won’t be a change in the defense because Bowles doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong. His wonderful schemes are perfect. The real problem is we’re missing one little tackle, one little drop back in coverage. His play calls are always right.
See what he’s doing? He’s even turning me into an unbeliever. I don’t want to give up! Fix this!!
October 30th, 2024 at 2:45 am
Fire Bloweszo now. But that won’t happen. However after he gives up a combined 100 points to the Chiefs and Niners, no chance Licht can avoid firing him. Liam is named interim head coach, Keith Tandy is named pass defense coordinator and flip a coin for who does the run game and carries the DC title.
Whatever.
On a side note, the great majorus pontificus is becoming a comedian, speculating about the one and only Michael Lovie Smith like this is all part of a plan.
ROTFL, tha’s whoopee cushion funny stuff.
Genius Crust.