As Pewter Report has previously reported, the Bucs are expected to fire offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich following the team’s 31-14 home loss to the Cowboys in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. As it has through much of the 2022 season, Leftwich’s offense stalled throughout the night, falling behind 18-0 at halftime and trailing 24-0 in the third quarter.

But Leftwich won’t be the only offensive coach that head coach Todd Bowles parts ways with. Bowles and the Bucs are expected to overhaul the offensive coaching staff with multiple assistants being let go as early as Tuesday, Pewter Report has learned.

Tampa Bay fielded the league’s worst rushing attack in 2022, averaging a woeful 75.6 yards per game. That could put run game coordinator/offensive line coach Harold Goodwin and fellow offensive line coach Joe Gilbert in jeopardy, in addition to running backs coach Todd McNair.

In fact, Bowles may contemplate replacing most of the Bucs’ offensive coaches after scoring fell to just 18.4 points per game this year, which ranked 25th in the league. Tampa Bay’s final open locker room media session will take place at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, but Bowles won’t be addressing the media until 3:30 p.m. ET, which could be a sign that he will be meeting with some of his assistant coaches to discuss their futures with the team.

Many Changes To Bucs Offensive Staff

Bucs OC Byron Leftwich, former HC Bruce Arians, WRs coach Kevin Garver, OL coach Harold Goodwin – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

This will be the first opportunity Bowles has had to retool his coaching staff after inheriting Bruce Arians’ assistants on March 30 when Arians abruptly retired from coaching. Keeping Arians’ assistants was part of the plan in Bowles being named Arians’ successor.

Even if Bowles wanted to make changes to the coaching staff when he took over as Tampa Bay’s head coach, he couldn’t because it was so late in the offseason. Bowles became the head coach two weeks after the start of free agency, and any coaches he wanted to hire were already committed to either college coaching staffs or were under contract with other NFL teams.

Complicating matters was the fact that the Bucs had averaged 30 points per game during the 2020 and 2021 seasons when the team won Super Bowl LV in Tom Brady’s first year and went 13-4 in 2021, winning the NFC South title last season. Even if Bowles saw the regression of the offense coming this summer, he couldn’t justify making a change at play-caller or on the staff because of the unit’s prior success scoring points the two previous seasons.

Yet, some at the team’s AdventHealth Training Center believe the Bucs offense simply out-talented opposing defenses from 2020-21 and Leftwich, who was a finalist for the Jacksonville head coaching job this past offseason, was the beneficiary of that.

With the likes of 1,000-yard receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, a future Hall of Fame tight end Rob Gronkowski and an explosive and mercurial receiver with Hall of Fame credentials in Antonio Brown, the Bucs simply had more weapons than opposing defenses could cover. Throw in the best quarterback at making pre-snap reads and finding the ideal matchup before the ball is snapped and it was nearly impossible for defenses to shut down all four talented playmakers at once.

Bucs OC Byron Leftwich and HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

As a result, the Bucs had one of the most dangerous passing games in the league for nearly two years, with Brady throwing 83 touchdowns from 2020-21. But when Brown quit on the team late last year, Gronkowski and Pro Bowl left guard Ali Marpet retired, and Pro Bowl center Ryan Jensen missed the regular season, Leftwich’s offense couldn’t simply out-talent the opposition.

Instead, the Bucs needed Leftwich to scheme Evans and Godwin, who was coming off a torn ACL from late in the 2021 season, open and get more creative with the play-calling. Both Bowles and Brady wanted the Bucs to run the ball more and be more balanced on offense after Brady led the league in pass attempts and completions in 2021 at age 44. None of that happened, and the Bucs struggled with predictable play-calling, which led to poor third down and red zone efficiency as a result.

As Pewter Report previously reported, Bowles was given the green light to fire Leftwich near midseason, but the fact that he didn’t see a capable replacement on the offensive coaching staff was damning. And it is a clear indicator that there could be significant changes to the offensive staff coming as early as Tuesday.