This is a total mess.
The Buccaneers are in free fall, and Todd Bowles made everything much, much worse. Taking the podium after Tampa Bay’s loss on Thursday Night Football to the Falcons, Bowles ostensibly absolved himself and his staff of any responsibility, before going on a expletive-laden tirade where he threw his own players under the bus.
It goes without saying, but there is some very NSFW language in the video below.
“It’s inexcusable. We don’t make excuses. You’ve gotta f***ing care enough where this s*** hurts. You’ve gotta f***ing care enough where this s*** hurts. It’s gotta f***ing mean something to you. It’s more than a job, it’s your f***ing livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? You cant sugarcoat that s***, it was inex-f***ing-cusable, and there’s no f***ing answer for it. No excuse for it. That’s what you tell ‘em in the locker room. Look in the f***ing mirror.”
That wasn’t all from Bowles, who calmed slightly, but really went for the jugular with his players.
In late October the Buccaneers were cruising to what looked like an easy NFC South win. Tampa Bay went into their bye week at 6-2, while the second place Panthers were at 4-4 after a devastating 40-9 loss to the Bills. Since that time everything has gone to hell. Through November and now into December the Buccaneers have gone 1-5, with their lone win coming in a three point victory over the struggling Arizona Cardinals.
Tampa Bay has lost to good teams like the Patriots, Rams, and Bills — and they’ve also lost to extremely bad teams like New Orleans and Atlanta. It’s moved the Bucs from 96% odds to make the postseason, now down to 53%, which will fall to 38% if the Panthers beat the Saints on Sunday.
At the center of this is a mess years in the making, fundamentally brought about by being painted into a corner. When Bruce Arians decided to step into a front office role he hand-picked Bowles to be his successor as head coach. It made sense from a continuity standpoint, but there were major question marks about Bowles’ ability as a head coach. Since that point he’s essentially kept the Bucs on the same trajectory, but nothing has happened to really put a Todd Bowles’ mark on this football team — it’s been more akin to crusing along with Arians’ team until the wheels have started to fall off.
Moreover, during this time the team has seen two former coordinators move on to head coaching jobs with Dave Canales in Carolina and Liam Coen in Jacksonville, both of whom have improved their respective teams drastically since taking over. It’s left the Buccaneers in a situation where they have likely ended up with the worst coach of the three teams, because they were in an awkward spot of not feeling able to improve at head coach because of their results.
Fundamentally what Bowles said could be true. The locker room could have taken their foot off the gas and aren’t caring nearly enough, but this is extremely problematic when it’s Bowles’ job to get the team organized enough that stuff like this doesn’t happen. It’s back on him if the players are coasting, and calling them out after Week 15 is far too late to make the changes needed to turn this around. Moreover, absolving a staff of all responsibility is a cowards way out. You win as a team, you lose as a team. Even if you don’t believe any of that falls on you, a coach should never say that in public.
Yelling about the building being poorly built doesn’t really help in the middle of its collapse.
The season isn’t over for the Bucs, far from it. The NFC South will be decided by two head-to-head games with the Panthers in Weeks 16 and 18. Perhaps Bowles was able to light a fire, but going about that in a way that separates the coaches from the players is a bad, bad way to do it. We’ve seen this before, and it never ends well.
Category: General Sports
