Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles open to drafting offensive player in first round

There's an old adage that defense wins championships. In the modern NFL, that phrase doesn't pull as much weight as it used to.

Defense certainly still wins championships (ask the Philadelphia Eagles) but having a dynamic offense is also necessary to bring home the Lombardi Trophy. Teams like the Kansas City Chiefs and the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers boasted strong offenses to help win games all the way through the playoffs, and that's something that Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles knows quite well.

Bowles was a coach on that Buccaneers Super Bowl-winning squad, and he also oversaw a top-five offense last year under offensive coordinator Liam Coen. And while the team's defensive woes last year were apparent and it's widely understood that the Bucs need to target that area in the draft, Bowles stressed at the NFL owners meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday that the team won't pass up an offensive weapon just to bolster the defense.

"I think, being a defensive coach, I learned that you win by scoring points," Bowles said. "So I don't ever want to bypass a very good offensive player. I can figure things out enough on defense to make us competitive... On defense, we can figure out a way to keep the score down, but you can't figure out a way to keep scoring points, especially if your horses go down."

The Bucs had a key horse go down last year in Chris Godwin and another, Mike Evans, for three games. The entire offense is set to stay in Tampa Bay, but adding to that unit could make it even more lethal.

That being said, Bowles still wants his defensive players — he's just fine being patient.

"Yes, I would like to add some [defensive pieces]," Bowles said. "But whether they come first or whether they come in the middle remains to be seen."

The Bucs will pick No. 19 in the NFL Draft in April, and only then will we really know what they're thinking. But Bowles seems to want the best player available for the Buccaneers when the team's name is called on the clock.