‘It was 10 times worse than that in the locker room’ — Todd Bowles explains on TV how he reacted after the Bucs’ collapse against Atlanta
The Bucs’ head coach apparently went nuclear on his team in the locker room after the loss.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2025 season ended in one of the most deflating ways imaginable. After a 6-2 start to the season, the team finished 2-7 after the bye week, struggling mightily in all three phases of the game.
Perhaps no single quarter of football defined who the Bucs were than the fourth quarter of their 29-28 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night football back on December 11. Leading 28-14 early in the fourth quarter, the Bucs allowed three Falcons scoring drives, including a walk off field goal. The Bucs’ offense couldn’t move the ball, and the defense couldn’t get off the field.
That included on third-and-28 on the final drive with Atlanta backed up deep in their own territory. The Falcons completed a 14-yard pass to tight end Kyle Pitts on far too soft coverage, and then Buc-killer Kirk Cousins completed a deep pass to David Sills V for 21 yards into field goal range. The Falcons’ Zane Gonzalez put the ball through the uprights from 43 yards out, and the Bucs suffered their worst loss of the year by a mile.
The lasting image of Mike Evans muttering “third and 28” as he headed to the locker room was one Bucs fans won’t forget anytime soon. The usually stoic Todd Bowles also went on a profanity-laced rant at the podium in his postgame press conference.
But what were things like in the locker room after the game? Bowles went on Good Morning Football on Monday morning, and he said things were “ten times worse”.
Todd Bowles says his reaction was ’10 times worse’ in the locker room than what he said at his press conference after Falcons loss
“I don’t believe I got fined, but it was 10 times worse than that in the locker room,” Bowles said. “Sometimes you get pissed and it’s got to come out. It has to come out. It came out more calmer in the press than it did in the locker room, but God dammit, I care.”
Bowles let out a string of F bombs in his press conference and was as angry as any time, at least publicly, that we’ve seen of him.
“It’s inexcusable,” Bowles said after the game. “You don’t make excuses. You’ve got to (expletive) care enough where this (expletive) hurts. You’ve got to (expletive) care enough where this (expletive) hurts. It’s got to (expletive) mean something to you. It’s more than a job. It’s your (expletive) livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? You can’t sugarcoat that (expletive). It was inex-(expletive)-cusable and there is no (expletive) answer for it. No excuse for it.”
Unfortunately, the fire and brimstone that came from Bowles didn’t work to get his players back in line and on the right page going into the final games of the season. The Bucs went to Carolina and Miami and dropped both, with the latter of the two being a particularly sad loss.
In what will be a critical season for Bowles and the Bucs in 2026, he’ll have to do a better job getting his players to buy in and do their jobs across 18 weeks. Because it appears as though both the quiet approach and the loud one didn’t register last season with his players.
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