“Jason Licht’s Been Beating The Brakes Off Us”
January 16th, 2025
Bucs GM Jason Licht.
Joe loves hearing crying out of NFC South cities not named Tampa.
That happened Monday when an educated and astute Saints fan (yes, there is such a thing) called former Jets personnel chief and linebackers coach Pat Kirwan on SiriusXM NFL Radio.
This disgusted Saints fans moaned about how the Bucs have gotten younger while the Saints have stayed old. And he cried about how Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht has built up his trenches on both sides of the ball far better than Saints GM Mickey Loomis.
The Saints fan also cried about salary cap management and then got to the April extravaganza known as the NFL Draft.
“Jason Licht’s been beating the brakes off us in the draft every year. They’ll beat the brakes off us again,” he cried.
The fun thing was that Kirwan said he agreed with the caller and then added that, more important, Licht hit a home run with Baker Mayfield and kept winning while digging out of salary cap jail.
Then Kirwan issued a bit of a warning to Licht and his bosses known as Team Glazer.
“I would hope that they’re smart enough not to do something bad with Todd Bowles,” he said. “Todd Bowles is a tremendous football coach.”
Kirwan ranted that the key question for ownership is, “Are the players still believing in the coach?”
For Bowles, he said, the answer is a resounding, “Yes.”
Joe loves how Licht has been kicking ass for several years. That doesn’t mean every pick is a winner, but Licht certainly is a top-flight GM.
Heck, that’s one reason some fans are so mad at Bowles. They’re sure the Bucs had enough talent secured by Licht to win a dozen games and advance deeper into the playoffs.
Ira Kaufman Dives Very Deep On Defensive Issues, Fixes & Successes, Talks Todd Bowles Distortions And Realities, Final Washington Feedback, And More
January 16th, 2025 at 3:02 pm
The Bucs Beat 3 of the 4 remaining teams in the NFC this year….. yeah they could have done ALOT better, he’ll took the Champs to OT!
January 16th, 2025 at 3:12 pm
Joe, here is the problem and the question for you. I believe in Jason. He will bring in enough talent to win a Super Bowl, but do you think Bowles is a good enough coach to win a super bowl. I don’t. He makes to many mistakes. He make clock management mistakes all the time. He can get us to the play-offs but he will not win the big one.
January 16th, 2025 at 3:18 pm
Kirwan obviously has not seen this pass defense get shredded by Cooper Rush and any QB with a pulse.
Todd might’ve been a good coordinator, but he is not a good head coach
January 16th, 2025 at 3:23 pm
Give Bowles one more year if, 1) He fires some of his defensive coaches and 2), Coen remains as OC. Yes, Bowles has the respect of his players but he’s too conservative, stubborn and lacks game/clock management skills. He’s similar to Dungy in that he can’t get over the hump but Dungy’s problem was the offense. Even to the casual observer, it was known early in the season the defense was the Achilles of this team. Licht needs to draft all defense plus get some Free agent Alpha Dogs for the defense.
January 16th, 2025 at 3:25 pm
Nice article Joe 👍🏼
January 16th, 2025 at 3:27 pm
Licht and Bowles are already studying the prospects in this years draft !! Next season should be much more exciting after the defense is tuned up.
Still, I hope Coach Bowles hires a DC to help improve the defense !!
Go Bucs !!!!
January 16th, 2025 at 3:37 pm
I get frustrated with bowels at times with his conservative ways clock management and pass defense has gone to 💩. But seriously other than that I mean 10 wins 3 straight NFC south titles obviously his players still fight for him and play hard. Good coach for the fans crying for Bowles to be fired the grass ain’t always greener on the other side. Bowles knows his defense especially the pass defense needs to improve. Jason will get him more talent and they will do better
January 16th, 2025 at 3:44 pm
As Joe has posted numerous times, the Bucs beat themselves in the Wildcard playoff game. A fumbled handoff and a bad snap. Had those not occurred, the Bucs, in all likelihood, would have won the game. The opponent didn’t cause those miscues. The Bucs did. Is that on coaching? Is the lack of discipline or concentration a coaching problem? Just asking.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:08 pm
Bowles should be gone. His fate should have been sealed after the KC game. Hi
game. He is conservative when he he should be more aggressive. Vice versa , more conservative when being blown out. It Chris Godwin. This failure on defense is totally on his shoulders.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:15 pm
Yeah keep telling yourself Bowles is a good enough coach.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:21 pm
The Bucs are in the third year of a rebuild, during which they have made the playoffs every season. That is astounding. Everyone wants to win a championship. Almost all championships are won by teams whose players are in their prime, playing the best ball of their lives. Checking the Bucs roster, I counted 35 players with fewer than 5 years experience. It’s reasonable to expect them to improve with experience, given the right coaching. I think that the Bucs, under Bowles, are giving them that and that players are improving; some, of course, will not improve enough and have to be replaced. But you can’t coach young players as you would hardened vets in their prime. I think Bowles’ calm but earnest approach is working. He’s right; if players can’t tackle or keep to their assignments, no strategy will work. Moreover, the things he stresses are the things that the players -and only the players themselves– can correct. At the same time, the veteran players —Mayfield, Evans, David, Vea, etc.– are thriving. Nothing wrong with that.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:21 pm
Jason’s built a solid starting team, one that can compete with just about any other in the NFL. Where we’ve been hurting is when injuries to our starters force us into the 2nd tier (backups) and especially into the 3rd tier (developmental/special teams players), especially on defense.
Bucs started the year fairly healthy and beat Washington (12-5) & Detroit (15-2) before losing to Denver (10-7). Bounced back & beat a good Philly team (14-3). So we went 3-1 with a reasonably healthy team against teams that finished the season 51-17 (.750 winning records). Not that shabby.
Unfortunately injuries started to pile up and continued the rest of the season. We lost 5 out of the next 6 games, against teams that went 54-48 (.529 winning records). Salvation though came in the last 7 games when we won 6 of those against teams that finished the season 40-79 (.336 winning records).
The schedule actually helped us quite a bit. Had we played Washington, Detroit & Philly in the 2nd half of the season instead of in the 1st half, good chance we wouldn’t have beaten them IMO. Instead of 10-7 & playing in the playoffs, we couldn’t ended 7-10 or thereabouts. Next year’s schedule (list of opponents at least) looks to be more difficult than this year. Bucs need to shine in both free agency AND the draft once again if we’re gonna fill our holes and improve our depth. Emphasis has to be on fixing this defense.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:25 pm
Mobucs … Great analysis. Thanks.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:29 pm
Licht has done a great job bringing in talent. Bowles is unable to coach the defense to be an average NFL defense. Bowles is the problem.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:30 pm
Defense rules is spot on.. backups are the issue, and while resigning our own players with limited cap space is impressive. When you do have limited cap space it forces you to lean on undrafted free agents and preseasons cuts for depth, instead of veterans on the free agent market.
There are no richard shermans, keanu neals, logan ryans, roaming the secondary room as backups… those things matter.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:35 pm
If Joe is so confident in Bowles, have him start taking over Joe’s investment portfolio.
He’d be so conservative Joe would barely see any profits.
And when it came time to sell he’d lose it all.
Just like when we reach the postseason.
January 16th, 2025 at 4:38 pm
Licht certainly is a top-flight GM.
January 16th, 2025 at 5:43 pm
The Bucs roster has 3 holes: MLB, OLB, CB
With all our picks and +$30M cap ($45M if they cut Dean), this team will be loaded with both talent and depth next season. The 2026 team will be even deeper.
Expect Licht to orchestrate another SB run over the next 2 years.
January 16th, 2025 at 5:47 pm
BUCS beating BUCS! Go Bowles
January 16th, 2025 at 7:10 pm
YaY. Glad to see you still alive DefR. Many here have missed you.
I enjoyed this article, too.
January 16th, 2025 at 7:26 pm
Objectively, do you think we did enough with the secondary to start the season?
January 16th, 2025 at 7:27 pm
Also in retrospect, going into the season with 52 (can’t remember his name at the moment) was a lost gamble.
January 16th, 2025 at 8:24 pm
Team still has a lot of weaknesses that need to be addressed, hopefully this is the year that Jason finally fixes the defense.
January 16th, 2025 at 8:50 pm
I hate hearing the question “do you think he’s good enough to win a super bowl?” when referring to Bowles or any coach. No coach is good enough to win a super bowl until they’ve won one.
Is Kyle Shanahan good enough to win a super bowl? If the answer is yes, then show me the proof?
Is Mike McCarthy good enough to win a super bowl? BTW, he’s some where on the streets if you want him.
January 17th, 2025 at 4:14 am
Great for that fan giving out facts and kudos for Jason Licht. Doubly great for Kirwan in supporting our coach Todd Bowles. He has it going with the team and is a winning coach.
Defense Rules – Good to see you back! A lot of us have been worried about you on here.
January 17th, 2025 at 4:17 am
Sorry, but Bowles needs to go. Promote Liam find a defensive C.
January 17th, 2025 at 5:27 am
Welcome Back DR,
Some here have missed your fact based analysis. Along with player evaluation,
there will also be a certain amount coaching evaluation. Hopefully Jason and Todd
sit down and discuss areas that could be improved. IMO, this team was dangerous
when they got ahead and played aggressively on offense. We didn’t match their intensity. One example that puzzled me was when Baker ran the ball on second and three inches. That’s almost like a free play.I thought we should have attempted a pass into the endzone on that play. There were weapons on the offense, who Cohen did not get involved.
Back to the analysis, I really think Todd needs to be more aggressive. Might be
time to for Jason to get some facts how aggressive coaches are taking chances and
seizing opportunities to grab the momentum and take control of the game.
January 17th, 2025 at 7:23 am
@ Defense Rules. I thought our schedule next year looked a little easier than this year. Where do you see it being a harder schedule than 7 out of division playoff teams we played this year? Detroit, KC, Philly Baltimore etc…I don’t see the likes of them on our schedule next year…
January 17th, 2025 at 7:51 am
I’m so sure Dungy got fired because he lost the locker room and players stopped believing in him 😑