Thad Lewis has been busy this offseason getting underway with a new offense while also trying to make his players better. Now, the Bucs’ quarterbacks coach is looking to make himself better, too, and will be attending the NFL Accelerator Program that is taking place next week in Nashville, Tennessee. Lewis also attended the event last year.

The purpose of the Accelerator Program is to have over 60 coach and general manager candidates get together for leadership development and networking opportunities. All 32 teams will be represented.

Bucs QBs coach Thad Lewis – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

An added feature of the program is that it provides senior women and minority prospects to have leadership development sessions with football operations experts and facilitators. They’ll spend time networking directly with team owners.

The goal is to continue building a diverse hiring pipeline for future head coach and general manager positions throughout the NFL. Two seasons ago, Senior Director of Research Jacqueline Davidson and former offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich attended the program. This year Lewis once again will be representing Tampa Bay for the second consecutive season.

Bucs QB Coach Lewis Has Risen Up The Ranks

The trajectory for the career of Thad Lewis is moving in the right direction. He has worked his way up in the Bucs’ organization form intern, to assistant wide receivers coach and then was the quarterbacks coach for the first time last year. While Dave Canales got most of the credit for Baker Mayfield’s seasons, it’s a great resume builder that Lewis was there to help Mayfield’s career resurgence with 4,044 passing yards and 28 touchdowns as the Bucs made it to the second round of the postseason.

Lewis received a couple of interviews during last offseason for offensive coordinator positions, but ended up back in Tampa Bay. Should the Bucs have another successful year, he may end up getting even more.

Bucs QBs coach Thad Lewis and QBs Kyle Trask, Baker Mayfield – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

After starting four years at quarterback in college at Duke where he broke school records for career passing yards (10,065) and passing touchdowns (67) to go with nine rushing touchdowns, Lewis spent eight seasons in the NFL.

He played for with the St. Louis Rams, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills, Houston Texans, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens. He played in seven career games, making six starts, recording 115 completions for 1,296 passing yards and five passing touchdowns, adding one rushing touchdown.

When Lewis wrapped up his playing career, he spent two years as an offensive analyst at UCLA working under Chip Kelly from 2018-19. Then, Lewis interned with the Bucs in 2020, where he made a strong impression on Bruce Arians, who hired him to replace Antwaan Randle El as the assistant receivers coach last year. Lewis officially joined the Bucs coaching staff in 2021 as the assistant wide receivers coach, staying in that role for two seasons until Todd Bowles anointed him as the next quarterbacks coach for the upcoming 2023 season and will resume it in 2024 with Mayfield.

Lewis is regarded as one of the brightest minds on the coaching staff and is highly thought of by both Bowles and former head coach Bruce Arians. He’ll have a new working experience this year with Liam Coen as the team’s offensive coordinator.

Thad Lewis Comments On New Offense

Bucs OC Liam Coen – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Coen isn’t the only new coach that Lewis is teaming up with for Tampa Bay. Lewis is pretty much the only holdover from the offensive coaching staff besides running backs coach Skip Peete as they have a new passing game coordinator, wide receivers, tight ends and offensive line coach.

Lewis recently spoke about what differences he’s seen in the offense that Coen is running and that he will also be using this season.

“I would say the motions and the shifts and things like that,” Lewis said. “We didn’t do much of it, we did some of it. Right now I would say you will see a lot of it (is) just trying to dictate the defense, getting man-zone intel, things like that. The motions and the shifts for sure I would say is the biggest thing you can count on that being done. You can probably count how many times during the game and tally it, but it’ll definitely be more than last year for sure.”