Getty Todd Bowles is on thin ice in Tampa Bay.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles felt the proverbial hot seat only grow hotter, and the Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds has identified two potential candidates to replace Bowles if the Buccaneers fire him. Scott Reynolds of Pewter Reports sees two likely replacements.
In a mailbag story titled “Should Todd Bowles Get Fired?” published the day after Tampa Bay lost 39-37 to the Houston Texans, Reynolds wrote that “the guess here is that assistant head coach Harold Goodwin or co-defensive coordinator Larry Foote would take over as the interim head coach” if Bowles gets fired. With that said, Reynolds noted that the Glazer family, owners of the Buccaneers, haven’t fired head coaches midseason before. And there is no reporting suggesting that Bowles, who is under contract for three more seasons, is in immediate jeopardy of losing his job.
“Either Foote or co-defensive coordinator Kacy Rodgers would take over the defensive play-calling duties. Rodgers, who coaches the defensive line, has experience doing it in New York,” Reynolds wrote on November 6.
Goodwin has been the assistant head coach since 2019, and he previously served as offensive coordinator with the Arizona Cardinals from 2013 to 2017. Foote has also been on the Buccaneers staff since 2019, and he previously coached linebackers with the Cardinals from 2015 to 2018.
Both Goodwin and Foote came over to Tampa Bay with former head coach Bruce Arians, who stepped down in 2022. Arians remains on the Buccaneers front office staff, but a return to coaching seems unlikely at this point.
Bowles succeeded Arians after serving as the defensive coordinator from 2019 to 2021, but Bowles hasn’t enjoyed the same success as Arians with an 11-15 mark thus far as head coach. Arians had a 31-18 record with the Buccaneers along with a Super Bowl win and an NFC South title.
‘It Can Get Much Worse’
For Bowles, he sits on the cusp of the franchise’s 17th five-game losing streak. The Buccaneers dropped their fourth in a row on Sunday, November 5, against the Houston Texans, and the Buccaneers defense had no answers for rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud.
Reynolds kept Buccaneers history in mind when he noted that “it can get much worse” than the current state of affairs at 3-5. He went through a list of past losing Buccaneers coaches who lost their jobs afterward from Greg Schiano to Dirk Koetter.
“Not saying the Bucs shouldn’t fire Bowles at the end of the year, especially if he can’t get the team turned around,” Reynolds wrote. “If Bowles can’t get this team to 9-8 or better, and into the playoffs, he will likely be replaced. And he should be if he can’t get to nine wins, especially given a couple of inexcusable losses so far against beatable opponents in Atlanta and Houston.”
Buccaneers Rebound Not Around the Corner, Scott Reynolds Says
Reynolds likened Sunday’s loss to what he coined as the 2015 “Collapse at the Capitol” when the Buccaneers lost 31-30 to the then-Washington Redskins in 2015. The Buccaneers never recovered and finished 6-10 after a 4-6 mark in the final 10 games.
This year’s Buccaneers team at least has a weak NFC South with the New Orleans Saints barely in the lead at 5-4. The Buccaneers blew out the Saints earlier this season, and the remaining schedule is laden in younger quarterbacks.
“Yet I don’t see how his Tampa Bay team rebounds from this loss, which Bowles aptly called ‘devastating’ after the game,” Reynolds wrote. “It was Bowles’ side of the ball that let this team down on Sunday – big time. Not only did Stroud throw for almost 500 yards, but the Texans had three 100-yard receivers – and none of them were Nico Collins, Houston’s leading receiver.”
The Buccaneers have to pick up the pieces next against a Tennessee Titans squad that’s enjoying a hot start, overall, by rookie quarterback Will Levis.