Bucs Mailbag: Is Todd Bowles The Best NFC South Coach?

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Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds answers your questions from the @PewterReport Twitter account each week in the Bucs Mailbag. Submit your question to the Bucs Mailbag each week via Twitter using the hashtag #PRMailbag.  Here are the Bucs questions we chose to answer for this week’s edition.

QUESTION: Can’t believe I’m asking this, but is Todd Bowles the best coach in the division? Or, more accurately, is he the least bad coach in the division?

ANSWER: The answer is yes – to however you want to phrase the question. Like it or not, Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles is the best head coach in the NFC South. Technically, he was the best head coach last year in going 8-9 while winning the division, as the other three NFC South teams all went 7-10. And he’s still the best head coach in the division when you factor in all of the coaches’ respective records with their current teams.

Bowles has compiled a 12-14 (.462) record in his year and a half with the Bucs. That’s slightly better than New Orleans’ Dennis Allen, who has a 12-15 (.444) record in a year and a half leading the Saints, and Atlanta’s Arthur Smith, who is 18-26 (.409) in his two and a half seasons with the Falcons. Carolina’s Frank Reich is 1-8 (.111) in his first season leading the Panthers.

Bowles is certainly not without his flaws, faults and shortcomings. But the Bucs did snap a four-game losing streak and are still only half a game out of the division lead at 4-5 on the season – behind 5-5 New Orleans and just ahead of 4-6 Atlanta, which has lost three straight games. We’ll see how he – and the rest of the NFC South head coaches – fares down the stretch. It’s a safe bet that at least one NFC South coach gets fired after this season, and possibly as many as three, as I discussed in a recent Pewter Pulse video.

QUESTION: Does a division title plus a playoff win keep this team and coaching staff intact for 2024 or have the Glazers seen enough in your opinion?

ANSWER: The key condition I think is a playoff win. The Glazers want to see progress from Todd Bowles this year. Bowles won the NFC South with an 8-9 record last year. Nine wins this year plus a playoff berth – whether it’s as division champs again or as 9-8 Wild Card team – would be considered progress.

But I think what the Glazers are looking for this year is a playoff win. Bowles was essentially 8-10 including that 31-14 loss at home to Dallas in the Wild Card round. Making the playoffs for a fourth straight season is the expectation in Tampa Bay. I don’t think the Glazers are delusional to the point where they think the Bucs are legit Super Bowl contenders this year. But winning a home playoff game is not an unreasonable request.

The real question is whether or not the Glazers give Bowles another season if the Bucs finish with nine or 10 wins but somehow miss the playoffs. Raheem Morris went 10-6 in 2010 and just missed the postseason. That bought him a little more time. The same thing happened in Dirk Koetter’s first year as head coach in 2016 when a 9-7 record wasn’t good enough for Tampa Bay to make the playoffs. Koetter got three years as a result, rather than the customary two seasons for any Glazer-hired head coach to prove himself.

QUESTION: A win is a win, but the product on the field still doesn’t look great. With a stretch of winnable games coming up later in the season, is there a possibility the Glazers fall for the fool’s gold and stick to the status quo in 2024?

ANSWER: Technically, yes. They’ve done it before when the Glazers thought general manager Mark Dominik and head coach Raheem Morris were heading in the right direction coming off a 10-6 season in 2010. They made very few changes to the coaching staff and the roster outside of another round of draft picks because they thought they had a core nucleus of really good players.

However, the fact that the Bucs came from behind for fourth quarter wins against the Bengals, Browns, Rams and Cardinals – all of whom were downtrodden teams at the time – definitely created a smoke and mirrors effect. Tampa Bay easily could have been 6-10 if those games had gone the opposite direction. As a result, the 2011 Bucs went 4-12 the next year and Morris was fired.

I think the Glazers have learned from that experience. Also keep in mind that the Glazers fired both of the team’s most successful head coaches in terms of win totals in Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden. Dungy was fired after three straight playoff berths after 2001, and Gruden was fired despite finishing 9-7 and missing the playoffs. And the Glazers had just given Gruden a lucrative, multi-year contract extension earlier in the offseason.

So even if Todd Bowles has a winning record, makes the playoffs or even wins a playoff game, the Glazers reserve the right to make a change at head coach if they feel the team isn’t headed in the right direction. They’ve proven that before.

QUESTION: With the win, are the Bucs trending in the right direction and for the rest of the season?

ANSWER: It’s too early to tell. All Sunday’s win over the Titans did was snap a four-game losing streak and allowed the Bucs to make up some ground in the division, as the Falcons and Saints also lost. A daunting trip to San Francisco awaits this weekend, as well as a probable loss to the 49ers, who are 6-3. Should that happen the Bucs would be 4-6 and needing to just about win out to make the playoffs.

Sunday’s victory against a Titans team that is now 3-6 was nice, certainly for the home fans who had previously seen the Bucs lose the last three home games prior to the win against Tennessee. But after the San Francisco game, Tampa Bay has a lot of work to do – probably winning at least five out of the last seven games to make the playoffs and having a chance to win the division at 9-8.

QUESTION: I didn’t get to watch the whole game, but did the defensive game plan change after the first drive? Noticed a lot of soft zone and they easily drove down the field, but the defense was strong the rest of the game. Tuned back in for the end and saw a lot of blitzing.

ANSWER: Not really. They played zone on a couple of plays, but in reality, Todd Bowles blitzed safety Antoine Winfield Jr. off the edge on the game’s first play. The Titans just did a good job of moving the ball down the field. They picked up two first downs on a couple of gimmicky plays. One was Tyjae Spears on a keeper out of the Wildcat when the Titans used misdirection. The second one was a play-action pass to tight end Josh Whyle, who faked like he was blocking and got behind middle linebacker Devin White for a first down catch.

I would say the Bucs defense was pretty aggressive throughout, and certainly settled in after that first series. Tampa Bay’s defense surrendered a field goal on that drive and only allowed one more field goal throughout the rest of the game. I would suggest that the Bucs defense was pretty locked in and aggressive throughout the whole game.

QUESTION: I don’t know if it’s just me but I think YaYa Diaby should start over Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. The front four struggle to get a rush but it seems like when Diaby is in there’s some juice or life to that D-line.

ANSWER: I agree with you, and believe it’s time to reward YaYa Diaby, who has two sacks in his last three games, with a starting job at Joe Tryon-Shoyinka’s expense. Have Diaby, who is the strongest and most powerful edge rusher in Tampa Bay, start opposite veteran Shaq Barrett. Perhaps this would be a needed wake-up call for JTS to play up to his potential as one of the most athletic pass rushers in the league and make the most of his limited snaps.

At the same time, Diaby did out-snap Tryon-Shoyinka on Sunday, 27-24, and the rookie also had four more snaps than Anthony Nelson (23) did, too. So maybe Sunday was a step in the right direction. Diaby outperformed Tryon-Shoyinka in the game, logging two tackles, two tackles for loss, two QB hits and one sack. Tryon-Shoyinka had two tackles, including one tackle for loss.

Diaby just needs experience. He needs snaps. He needs reps. Diaby was a bit of a late bloomer at Louisville as a pass rusher, registering nine sacks and 14 tackles for loss as a senior after posting just 1.5 sacks and three tackles for loss as a junior for the Cardinals.

QUESTION: SirVocea Dennis generated a lot of hype in the preseason, but KJ Britt replaced Devin White when he got hurt. Does that have anything to do with Britt being better football player now, or related to ability to call defensive plays?

ANSWER: Devin White missed one snap on Sunday due to what looked like a foot cramp in the first quarter. He was in fact replaced by third-year linebacker K.J. Britt. Bucs head coach and defensive play-caller Todd Bowles trusts Britt, who has been in the system since he was a Day 3 pick in 2021, so that’s why he’s the first inside linebacker off the bench. He does have limited experience on defense, but more importantly, knows the calls.

That’s not to suggest that rookie SirVocea Dennis couldn’t play. Dennis missed the last two games of the preseason with a hamstring injury, as well as the start of the season. So the coaching staff didn’t really get a great read on what Dennis can and can’t do in a game situation. Dennis’ growth has been stunted as a result.

That’s not to say that the Bucs coaching staff doesn’t believe in him or trust him. It just means that as of right now Bowles has more trust in Britt until Dennis can see some on-field snaps in games on defense. That won’t happen unless it’s garbage time minutes or an injury to White and Britt happens.