Todd Bowles Shares His Message To The Bucs

The future of Todd Bowles as the Bucs head coach is undecided at this point after an early first round exit for Tampa Bay. Besides any closed-door conversations with ownership or general manager Jason Licht, there’s not much more that Bowles can do other than start planning for next season until he’s told not to anymore.

Todd Bowles and Tampa Bay didn’t reach their ultimate expectations of winning a Super Bowl. But the season wasn’t a disaster either. Going into next season, this won’t be the same looking team. That’s just the nature of the NFL. So, before the Bucs departed for the offseason, Todd Bowles had one last message to his players, which he revealed this week.

Todd Bowles Gives A Message To The Bucs Roster

“Obviously, I’m proud of the work they’ve done this year,” Todd Bowles said. “It wasn’t good enough – the only team that’s going to be happy is the team that’s going to win the Super Bowl. Start the little things right. It starts with the offseason, once they come back from break. We’ve got to build it up from ground zero once again. A lot of guys in that room are free agents. We’d be lying if we said we were going to keep everybody, or everybody was going to stay. For whatever reason, there’s going to be turnover. When they come back, just understand we’re starting from ground zero.”

“We have to do the little things right to start the season all over again. We’re not going to pick up where we left off. I’m proud of the effort, proud of the organization, the people in the building – from the general manager to the scouting department, equipment, trainers, everybody, nutritionists, the whole gang. We’ve just got to do a better job of coaching, a better job of playing, making plays at the little times, coaching it right at the best time, and come back with a chip on our shoulders.”

The fundamentals really seem like they are going to be a point 0f emphasis come training camp. There were simple plays that cost the Bucs in the Wildcard round. A botched hand off exchange, an early snap and the defense being out of position, which has happened all season, all led to the loss. All of these situations are avoidable.

“It won’t be injuries,” Todd Bowles said on what the next step is. “It’s doing the little things right – not turning the ball over, getting off the field on third down. Those are the little things that happened all year that came up at the end. We had a good stretch defensively at playing third downs – didn’t play them well last night. They got the turnover in the plus territory inside the red zone right there. It won’t take injuries because people go to the playoffs with injuries all the time. That’s not even a factor. We just have to do the little things right when we get there.”

Does Todd Bowles Have An Offseason Wishlist?

Of course, there many spots in which this team can better, especially on the defensive side of the ball. According to Todd Bowles, we’d be here all day if he ran through all of them.

“Right now, all areas, as I dive into it,” Todd Bowles said. “We haven’t dived into the offseason yet, but I can name a myriad of things and it’d be too long of a list to go into right now. Whatever it takes to get us to the next step.”

Is there anything he wants for next season? Bowles wouldn’t go into detail.

“Like I said, I don’t have a top of the list,” Bowles said. “I’m still fresh off the loss right now. There’s a lot of things I can single out, but I wouldn’t say they were top of the list until I sat down and really charted them and looked at them. Once the weeks go on, we’ll start to get ahold of that and see what we want to do.”

Is Todd Bowles Considering A Coaching Change?

We saw vast improvements from the offensive side this year thanks to new coaches at offensive coordinator, offensive line, tight end, and wide receiver. It might be time for the defense to get a new look after their worst season under Bowles and a unit that only had seven interceptions.

Todd Bowles is also very loyal to his group, and he might not be willing to make those changes. He was asked about this during the week but pivoted to that it was too early.

“Not thinking about that right now,” Todd Bowles said. “Again, we’re having exit interviews – we’re fresh off the loss. As the days come, we’ll go from there. We went to the playoffs five times with the defensive coaches we have. They’re very good coaches, obviously. A lot of things have to happen in that…We’ve got to get more interceptions, we’ve got to coach it better, but we’ve got to play it better, as well.”