Todd Bowles has one saving grace after firing Josh Grizzard and he still has more changes he must make
A big change happened on Thursday at One Buc Place, but the biggest issue still has yet to be addressed.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally took action to give some accountability after a disastrous 2-7 slide to end a very disappointing 2025 season. However, it wasn’t on the side of the ball that stood out down the stretch as the worst.
Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Bucs have fired offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard after just one season as the team’s offensive coordinator.
Grizzard was promoted after Liam Coen left last offseason to take the head coaching position with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Under Grizzard, the Bucs offense took a step back in 2025, dropping from third to 21st in yards per game and from fourth to tied for 17th in points per game.
While the Bucs offense dealt with injuries on the offensive line all season and at wide receiver, the game plan was predictable, conservative, and ultimately didn’t work. Even when the team was relatively healthy late in the year, the offense still struggled to put points on the board. One can even make the argument the unit regressed despite getting healthier.
2026 will now feature the fifth-straight OC under Todd Bowles, which is absolutely wild to think about, and this time he’s in a tougher spot than ever before when considering this year could easily be his last.
There is one saving grace, however, that could allow him bring in the right guy and get Baker Mayfield and Co. back on track. But even then, it’s not going to be an easy road to travel.
Todd Bowles enters 2026 on the hot seat, and every offensive coordinator candidate knows it
The Glazer family decided to keep Bowles for one more season after much public speculation. But, absent significant progress, it’s very likely he won’t be back after 2026.
And OC candidates around the league surely know that. Coming to coach at a place where the head coach could be gone after one season is a tough situation to ask a competitive candidate who is looking at more stable options. For instance, in a hypothetical where the Seattle Seahawks lose Klint Kubiak, it’d make so much more sense for a competitive OC candidate to go there due to Mike Macdonald’s current status than compared to Bowles’.
And things were not super easy when Tampa Bay ended up hiring both Dave Canales and Liam Coen previously. The Bucs interviewed nine candidates before interviewing and hiring Dave Canales in mid-February of 2023. That wasn’t an easy sell either, to be fair, as Tom Brady had just retired, the Bucs’ quarterback situation wasn’t settled, and there were doubts around Bowles, even then.
Coen also kind of fell in the Bucs lap to some degree, but he was still the seventh candidate they interviewed by early February 2024. And Bowles certainly had a longer leash then than he does going into this offseason.
Bowles’ defense was what failed the team the most down the stretch
The move to fire Grizzard is ironic because Bowles has said multiple times this season that he’s got to be better as far as the defense improving. And make no mistake, this defense is what failed this team in the most crucial situations.
As usual, Atlanta QB Kirk Cousins embarrassed Tampa Bay on a national stage, turning a third-and-28 into a first down in the fourth quarter of a pivotal Thursday night game that the Bucs dropped 29-28. Josh Allen and the Bills torched Tampa Bay for 44 points. Matthew Stafford and the Rams completely embarrassed the Bucs on Sunday night football, posting 31 points by halftime.
Bowles needs help around him, whether that’s a defensive coordinator, advisors, better support staff, or whatever else he needs to improve that side of the ball. This should be his primary focus, not the offense. Even if Grizzard couldn’t get the job done.
And Jason Licht isn’t immune to criticism here. His big offseason acquisition of Haason Reddick was a bust, and draft pick Chris Braswell has proven he’s not up making any kind of an impact off the edge either.
But the optics just look bad for Bowles, whose primary job should be finding a way to answer why so much talent on that side of the ball came up so short time and again.
Bucs offense should attract some established names
There’s so much to unpack, here. There’s still plenty of time for Bowles to make major changes on the defensive side of the ball and odds are he will.
It’s fair to argue, though, the Bucs need to get out in front of the OC search due to the fact a hot offensive mind is all the rage in today’s NFL and that’s likely what the Bucs are doing, here.
Regardless, while yes, searching for your fifth OC in as many years in an offseason that could be your last is a major hinderance, the Bucs offense is a ready-made product that returns all but two starters in 2026 and even those guys (Mike Evans, Cade Otton) have a chance of re-signing with the Buccaneers in free agency.
2023 certainly didn’t feature this kind of firepower and it was still mostly an unknown product in 2024. Sure, the pieces where there, but Mayfield and the crew didn’t put it all together in 2023 like they did under Coen. And while Coen obviously played a very large role in building the powerhouse that was the ’24 unit, the cohesion from years past also helped and that same chemistry still remains.
The best part about the Bucs offense is it features a variety of skill players that can do multiple things. Chris Godwin Jr. and Emeka Egbuka can create matchup advantages across the formation and Bucky Irving is a big play waiting to happen. Add all that to the same five offensive linemen being healthy and returning and it’s easy to see why the 2026 version of the Bucs offense is a powder keg.
This will be Bowles’ saving grace in all of this, but it’s up to him to sell the job to top candidates. That should be easy, but winning the NFC South was supposed to be easy over the last several weeks of the season and we know how that played out.
Either way, there’s a lot to like with the Bucs offense and it should help persuade a credible name to head south.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers News
Yaya Diaby is speaking the truth Buccaneers need to hear if they want to be respected again
The third-year pass rusher isn’t backing down when it comes to fixing the Bucs.
