Bucs still searching for an offensive identity under Josh Grizzard

Look on the bright side. It may be safe to assume the Bucs won’t be losing Josh Grizzard to a head coaching job.

The 35-year-old offensive coordinator hasn’t inspired confidence like Dave Canales or consistently authored great game plans like Liam Coen.

Those predecessors parlayed one year as Bucs offensive coordinator into head coaching jobs with Carolina and Jacksonville, respectively.

If Grizzard spends only one year as the Bucs’ play caller, it will be because quarterback Baker Mayfield got worse, and after a 6-2 start he couldn’t make the offense better.

Grizzard is the third straight offensive coordinator hired in as many years by head coach Todd Bowles.

He may have settled for continuity over ingenuity.

The Bucs didn’t want Mayfield and the rest of the offensive players to learn a new scheme and terminology. Instead, they promoted Grizzard, the former Yale grad and Duke post-grad from Lizard Lick, North Carolina, who spent last season as the passing game coordinator who also was responsible for third downs. His first seven seasons in the NFL were spent in Miami, where the Bucs play Sunday.

Injuries and inexperience have conspired to make Grizzard’s OC debut a heck of a lot more difficult than what Canales and Coen experienced.

“You’ve got to constantly adjust as a coordinator,” Bowles said. “As a first-time coordinator, when you’ve got injuries plus it’s your first time, it makes it a little bit more difficult, but Josh has hung in there and he’s come up with some plans for us to make it work and we just have to execute better.”

The Bucs did most of their winning with their offensive line in shambles. By Week 2, both offensive tackles were out and guard Cody Mauch was on injured reserve with a season-ending knee injury. When the Bucs began the season, they did not have one of their five starting offensive linemen in their original positions.

Receiver Chris Godwin missed the first couple games, returned for two, then suffered a new fibula injury. Veteran Mike Evans injured his hamstring, then came back for one game at Detroit and broke his collarbone while sustaining a concussion. Second-year receiver Jalen McMillan suffered three neck fractures in the preseason and didn’t return until two games ago.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, running back Bucky Irving suffered foot and shoulders injuries, then struggled mentally while recovering.

Now most of those players have returned but the offense hasn’t really gotten better during this bleak streak.

Last Sunday’s 23-20 loss to Carolina was a head scratcher. With all those players back, Grizzard had a very conservative game plan.

A week earlier in a one-point loss to the Falcons, the Bucs watched Evans catch six passes for 132 yards. Godwin found the end zone for a touchdown and two-point conversion. McMillan came within an inch of his first reception resulting in a TD.

And yet last Sunday at Carolina, Grizzard entered the game bent on the Bucs having 30 rushing attempts because the Panthers were 2-15 when teams did just that.

Of course the flaw in that plan was that teams usually got so far ahead of the Panthers that they didn’t need to throw much.

“We want to be able to run the ball every week to establish it and then, in the game, adjust as needed depending on if the runs are hitting or if the passes are hitting,” Grizzard said. “Versus that particular opponent, when teams were able to earn the right to run the ball 30 times — which we talk about, when you run it that much, you’ve earned the right to do that through efficient runs, getting a hat on a hat, it really takes all 11 (players). ...

“So we went in with the goal to do that because of their record when you’re able to get that done. We essentially played that game how we wanted to play that game, and we just didn’t make enough plays in certain moments to ultimately come out with the win.”

That’s not to say Grizzard doesn’t know he has to do a better job of getting his receivers the ball. The Bucs had only one play of 15 yards or longer in the loss at Carolina and that was a 40-yard strike to rookie Emeka Egbuka, his only reception of the game.

Godwin finished with five catches for 30 yards but three resulted in first downs.

“I think we can find him on a couple more routes down the field,” Grizzard said. ”What Chris has done an unbelievable job (on), especially in that game, being on the road and having a north-of-50% conversion rate on third down. … A lot of that came from Chris Godwin."

For all the criticism faced by Grizzard, the production would seem to indicate he’s actually done a better job than Canales.

Through 16 games, Grizzard has led the Bucs to more points per game (23.1 to Canales’ 21.2 in 2023), total offense per game (323.9-315.3) and rushing yards per game (116.9-90.4), but trail in passing yards per game (233.6 in 2023 to 198.3 today).

“It’s really every week on do we want to exploit a matchup on the perimeter like we did versus Atlanta versus a backup corner?” Grizzard said. “But not doing that too much, because you can’t just drop back all the time. I think we saw that happen a little bit in Detroit (in Week 7). I learned a lesson on that one in terms of doing it too much.

“There’s a balance. We’ve got a ton of playmakers on the perimeter, as well as the running backs and tight ends. Ultimately, we’ve got to be able to get them all the ball.”

That’s the job, or the Bucs could be looking at another one-and-done coordinator.

Up next

at Dolphins, 1 Sunday TV/radio: Fox; 97.9-FM Line/OU: Bucs by 5 1/2; 45 1/2

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