Status Quo Orders To Josh Grizzard
February 4th, 2025
A guy who knows Todd Bowles well says the head coach won’t be giving his new offensive coordinator endless rope.
Former Jets personnel chief and linebackers coach Pat Kirwan is the big SiriusXM NFL Radio afternoon voice and he often hosts the Buccaneers’ head coach during the season. Joe’s even seen Kirwan and Bowles talking off air at big NFL events.
So Joe was interested to hear Kirwan’s take on the Bucs promoting Josh Grizzard to offensive coordinator after the recent departure of “El Serpiente,” Liam Coen, to Jacksonville.
Kirwan acknowledged how Baker Mayfield has been unfazed by playcaller changes but he emphasized that Bowles will “make sure” Grizzard doesn’t try to exert his ego and make the Bucs’ system more challenging.
Per Kirwan, Grizzard won’t get a green light to be “jumping up and down and inventing new stuff and new languages.”
Coordinators can be lazy, Kirwan noted, and prefer their own playbook language to what players are most comfortable with.
Obviously, Grizzard was with the Bucs last season as passing game coordinator/third-down guru, but that doesn’t mean Grizzard is lacking his own ideas and a desire to bring elements from his many years under three head coaches with the Dolphins.
Kirwan’s point was that Bowles will draw a line in the sand with Grizzard; do your thing but keep it within the scope of what led the Bucs to 29.5 points per game last season.
It’s an interesting take by Kirwan as Bowles has said many times over the years that he gives nearly complete freedom to his offensive coordinators.
February 4th, 2025 at 11:17 am
If it ain’t broke…
Grizzard I’m sure understands that one of the reasons he was hired was continuity. They want to progress in the current offense rather than install a new one from the ground up. Keeping the terminology and most of the concepts the same should be enough. I mean, what rookie OC wouldn’t welcome walking into an offense that’s already working? He’ll get to put his own stamp on it over time.
February 4th, 2025 at 11:32 am
I hope Grizzard do put his own spin on the offense. DCs have film on the Bucs offense and will have a plan to defend it.
February 4th, 2025 at 11:44 am
Hopefully he doesn’t plan on calling jet sweeps at the 10 yard line for a guy who never got the ball on that play all season……
February 4th, 2025 at 11:46 am
^^ That’s where he’ll have his freedom. Adding new plays and formations, which every offense has to do to evolve and stay ahead of defenses. And obviously gameplanning and on game day, he’ll be responding to the opponent. It’ll be his version. I’m not worried about stagnancy just because he was hired to maintain some continuity.
February 4th, 2025 at 11:48 am
You would think that continuity and commonality would be an advantage. It generally seems to be. Looking at Bowles defense and the challenges it had with basic communication this past season it makes one wonder.
February 4th, 2025 at 11:56 am
I mean every year these play books evolved so there will be some differences
February 4th, 2025 at 12:03 pm
Yea that’s a hot take kirwan, if he would let Canales run up the middle for 1 yard on 1st down all season then he’ll let these guys run whatever they want.
February 4th, 2025 at 12:09 pm
Todd doesn’t want things to be complicated?
Like his D?
February 4th, 2025 at 12:16 pm
Can someone make Bowles’ defense “less challenging”?
February 4th, 2025 at 12:33 pm
Eh, I don’t know how much stock to put in this statement. Not that Kirwan is a hot take kind of guy- he’s not. But this just kinda seems like, “duh”, to me.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That said, I don’t think for one minute Bowles will be putting any sort of least on him, or telling him not to add his own wrinkles and play designs.
Perhaps ya’ll forgot, but in our last 4 games, opposing defenses had caught on to what we were doing offensively and were sniffing out a lot of plays, especially all those throws behind the LOS…
February 4th, 2025 at 12:34 pm
* leash on him
February 4th, 2025 at 1:05 pm
Meaningless take. Bowles gives his OCs freedom, and Grizz will get his. Grizz will evolve the offense because OCs always evolve their offense. They have to. If Coen had stayed he’d be making changes too.
February 4th, 2025 at 1:27 pm
The Glazers should draw a line in the and for Bowles defense, if you give up more than 400 passing to Atlanta again we’ll fire you.
February 4th, 2025 at 1:36 pm
Joseph simmons – no kidding guy, mr pedantic/missing bigger point over here. There is a difference between evolving/making adjustments and putting their own stamp on actual play design and how the play is called along with situation play calling. Its all about keeping the same formula of what made Baker and the offense successful without feeling the need to reinvent the wheel. Consider that feedback free of charge
February 4th, 2025 at 2:47 pm
Coach probably telling Grizz, “Hey if you can average scoring 34ppg, we might be able to win 10 games again.”
Jason needs to address the pass defense, and the coach who is 50% both HC and DC, good at neither.
February 4th, 2025 at 3:19 pm
I’d say it was worth about what I paid for it
February 4th, 2025 at 6:24 pm
Well, that is actually NOT a good thing.
Man isn’t even on the job yet and Bowles is handcuffing him, according tp Kirwan.
February 4th, 2025 at 7:41 pm
I would think that for the first few games you could hold him back a little. If things are working add a few things and by game six or seven, you better have a real backup plan or else another season is going down the drain. I think passing plays seem like he’s got things going for him, now what can you do with running plays and finding a great way to blend it all into a weekly game plan. Let’s Go Bucs!!!!
February 4th, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I think Miami took the timing passing game and motions/shifts, to aid the pass and run game to a new level for a year or 2 there until Tua started getting hurt.
If he can add more innovation without creating more complexity or confusion – mainly accomplished by keeping the language the same as Shanahan/Mcvay’s, and making sure the new concepts marry up with what we’ve been doing, then I don’t see any reason our offense won’t be fine to start the year and playing better than ever by mid season 🤘🏼
Wondering if he’ll bring Rachaad back into the fold for more 21 personnel? Miami ran that more than anybody. If we keep running Bucky more than 20-25 times per game it’s going to have him riding the bench, injured, and we don’t want that.
Very optimistic about the Grizz…. He’s not stupid. He’ll collaborate with Baker and his coaches and not look to invent the wheel 👍🏼
February 5th, 2025 at 5:29 am
Kirwan is no dummy and he is not wrong. He is one of the few left that I have immense respect for.
The biggest reason he even got an interview is this exact thing.
Go Bucs!