Ever since the Bucs’ season ended in Week 18, frustration has boiled over in Tampa Bay, with nearly all of it directed at head coach Todd Bowles. Despite the disappointment, Bowles will return in 2026. Whether there’s legitimate hope for next season depends on one thing: how willing he is to change — and how aggressively general manager Jason Licht supports him.

How can the Bucs inspire hope and get the job done in 2026?

The Bucs Have To Make A Great OC Hire — And Todd Bowles Has To Give Them Full Control

Todd Bowles has had the unfortunate reality of finding a new offensive coordinator every season as the Bucs head coach. That comes with the difficulty of being defensive minded in a league where offense reigns supreme and teams go with the next best thing to lead the roster.

After Dave Canales and Liam Coen were hired for head coaching jobs with the Panthers and Jaguars, Bowles bet on the continuity that Josh Grizzard would provide. Ultimately, Grizzard’s tenure in Tampa Bay failed to yield the same kind of results as Coen’s did, and he was the first coaching domino to fall.

Bucs OC Josh Grizzard and HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

For the Bucs to have any chance at getting back to double-digit wins in 2026, Bowles and general manager Jason Licht has to hit another home run at offensive coordinator. Whether the best course of action is going with a veteran offensive play-caller or taking a chance on someone unproven is debatable, it has to work. The difficulty here is that if it works too well and the defense falters, the Glazers will not let the same mistake happen twice by letting another bright mind walk out the door. At the same time, the offense has all the talent to get back its 2024 levels and has to realize that ability.

With four offensive coordinator interviews already lined up and/or completed as of Monday morning, it is expected that this will be a long, thorough search. Perhaps even longer than the 2023 process that led to Canales taking the job. Being on the hot seat heading into next year narrows the volume of candidates who will likely sign on.

Former Falcons OC Zac Robinson, former Ravens OC Todd Monken and Rams pass game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase – Photos by IMAGN Images

Regardless of what happens and who comes into town, the biggest objective this offseason that will make-or-break things is landing the best offensive mind and giving them complete autonomy over his staff and gameplan. Bowles cannot hire someone and have them be ultra-conservative, as he did when directing Grizzard to pound the football against the Panthers instead of airing it out late in the season.

If Bowles undercuts his next hire, it will not just cost him another coordinator — it will cost him the locker room and his job.

Todd Bowles’ Coaching Staff Reset Must Lead To Schematic Changes

It is no secret just how much the Bucs’ defense underwhelmed in 2025. The “eureka” moment Todd Bowles talked so highly about offered hope the unit could get back to the level it played at in 2020 and 2021 when Bowles was defensive coordinator.

Instead, the defense regressed across the board, with serious questions about how to improve. To begin Tampa Bay’s offseason, Bowles let go of a few defensive coaches, including his most trusted confidants in cornerbacks coach Kevin Ross and safeties coach Nick Rapone, who elected to “retire.” In addition, defensive line coach Charlie Strong was shown the door after just one season in town, and now it is time to start finding replacements.

Former Bucs S coach Nick Rapone – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

While the veteran defensive play-caller could elect to bring in familiar voices, the approach that would provide the most optimism is deviating from what he knows and finding young, promising minds who can rejuvenate the scheme and their respective position rooms.

The fact remains; football is a young man’s game.

Look across the league, and the best defenses are guided by the Mike Macdonald, DeMeco Ryans, Jesse Minter, Chris Shula, and Brian Flores tier of defensive minds. The anomalies in the playoffs this year are the 51-year-old Sean McDermott and the 50-year-old Mike Vrabel. The former has MVP quarterback Josh Allen on offense leading the way and offensive coordinator Joe Brady calling plays, while the latter spent over a decade in the league as a cerebral linebacker and is leading the resurgent Patriots.

With that in mind for a Tampa Bay defense that has failed to bring all of the pieces together, Bowles should take a page out of the late, great Monte Kiffin’s book. After the 2000 season, Kiffin plucked Mike Tomlin from coaching defensive backs in Cincinnati and hiring Joe Barry from being the 49ers defensive quality control coach. Tomlin and Barry played a pivotal role taking the defense to the next level in the following years.

Former Bucs head coach Jon Gruden and DBs coach Mike Tomlin – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Bowles has to find lively, energetic coaches who can do the same, not swapping one older coach for another, like he did last year by bringing in Charlie Strong to replace Kacy Rodgers.

It is not all doom and gloom coaching-wise, as outside linebackers coach/run game coordinator Larry Foote and assistant secondary coach Rashad Johnson are still on the staff.

Foote, 45, returned to coach the outside linebacker room after overseeing Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul from 2019-2021. While the pass rush produced its worst sack output under Bowles yet, how much of that is on Foote compared to the talent he had to work with? For Johnson, the 40-year-old former NFL safety has been responsible for coaching up the nickelbacks since 2023. That has resulted in bringing along Christian Izien, Tykee Smith, and Jacob Parrish each year.

Those are about the only two bright spots on the staff, with more changes looming.

Bowles is already wading in untreaded waters, with his best course of action being diving completely into the unknown by hiring coaches who can help him innovate his scheme. Issues have compounded in recent years, whether it is the declining ability to bring down the quarterback, missed tackles, lapses in coverage, to the middle of the field providing little resistance and much opportunity for opposing offenses.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

As he admitted after the season, there was no defensive consistency week-to-week.

“I thought it was a tough year, defensively,” Bowles said. “It starts with me, because I’m the [defensive] coordinator, as well, and the coaching staff, but we’ve got to rush better, and we’ve got to cover better. It works together. Sometimes the rush got there, and the coverage wasn’t there. Sometimes the coverage was there, and the rush didn’t get there. It’s not about the sacks – it’s more, for us, about the pressure and making the quarterback get rid of the ball and be incomplete. I don’t think we did that consistently.”

Being 62 years old, there is not a ton of time left for Bowles as a head coach. He could decide to retire at the end of his current contract, should he finish it out. While being in the league and seeing a lot over his four decades playing and coaching, the only way Bowles’ defense improves at this point is by adding energy and giving new assistants the ability to use their methods to bring players along and have a say in what the unit does. Simply put, it is time for the old dog to learn new tricks if he wants any chance of stopping the best offenses.

Bucs GM Jason Licht Needs To Help Todd Bowles This Offseason, Too

While Todd Bowles has a lot of work to do this offseason finding the right offensive and defensive coaches who can elevate this Bucs team, Jason Licht needs to do the same by acquiring the right talent. For as much positive work Licht has done filling up this roster with young talent and keeping it competitive after Tom Brady, now is the time to take it to the next level.

Bucs GM Jason Licht – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

There are a lot of good players in Tampa Bay, but how many would you say are great at this point?

Just Tristan Wirfs?

A 32-year-old Mike Evans?

Mind you, those are only offensive players.

There is not a true game-changer on defense, and that is what Licht needs to find. He did it back in 2018 trading for outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul and in 2019 by signing defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh and outside linebacker Shaq Barrett. That elevated the unit to next level and brought instant credibility and a brand of toughness no longer there.

Finding a way to trade for Raiders star pass rusher Maxx Crosby is one solution that would be a prayer answered.

Raiders DE Maxx Crosby – Photo by: USA Today

Calling the Steelers and acquiring Nick Herbig is a solid plan B at finding another Barrett.

When it comes to the 2026 NFL Draft, getting a defensive star like Ohio State inside linebacker Sonny Styles in the first round would provide much-needed juice, or going out in free agency and paying talented young players (like inside linebacker Nakobe Dean, for example) is a great way to go about injecting life and production.

Otherwise, Tampa Bay is just spinning its wheels hoping for a lot to go right when they have the resources to kick things into a higher gear. If they believe the offense can get back to its 2024 form and the defense will improve simply on new coaches and schematic tweaks, adding talent to help Bowles fully unlock things is the only course of action to talk yourself into believing this team can get back to the Super Bowl.

If no moves like the ones mentioned above are made, what are we even doing here?