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Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds answers your questions from the @PewterReport Twitter account each week in the Bucs Monday Mailbag. Submit your question to the Bucs Monday Mailbag each week via Twitter using the hashtag #PRMailbag. Here are the questions we chose to answer for this week’s edition.

QUESTION: So if Byron Leftwich called plays last year, then what’s the problem now?

ANSWER: Great question. Byron Leftwich called the plays when the team had three Pro Bowl offensive linemen, a future Hall of Fame quarterback, a future Hall of Fame tight end, a future Hall of Fame wide receiver, a Hall of Fame-caliber receiver who was a jackass and a 1,000-yard Pro Bowl receiver. The Bucs were favorites in almost every game because they were the most talented team on the field.

Bucs OC Byron Leftwich – Photo by: USA Today

Now, half of that talent is gone. Ali Marpet and Rob Gronkowski are retired. Antonio Brown is out of the league and tweeting dumb stuff. Ryan Jensen is hurt and probably out for the year. The Bucs haven’t found anyone close to the caliber of replacements for them, and that’s on general manager Jason Licht and the personnel staff – even more than Todd Bowles and the coaching staff.

Luke Goedeke has struggled mightily as a rookie, and the Bucs should have turned to Nick Leverett weeks ago. Aging veteran Kyle Rudolph is a shell of his former self, and while Cade Otton shows promise, he’s still a rookie and rookies make mistakes. Robert Hainsey has been playing decent, but the team sorely misses Jensen’s leadership and attitude up front. He set the tone, especially along the offensive line. Russell Gage has been injured since training camp and is nowhere close to being an adequate replacement for Brown – much less a $10 million receiver.

So, Leftwich has a much less talented roster to work with. That’s not his fault. And Tom Brady is obviously distracted by what’s going on in his personal life and isn’t his playing his best football right now, which isn’t helping Leftwich’s cause. But as the offensive coordinator and play-caller, it’s Leftwich’s job to adjust, adapt, figure it out and solve problems. I’ve called for him to be replaced because I haven’t seen any of that happening and we’re almost to the midway point of the season.

The Bucs have scored 31 points, 21 points, 18 points and three points in four successive weeks. And that decline in scoring has come against progressively worse opponents from Kansas City to Atlanta to Pittsburgh to Carolina. The offense is clearly in regression and I don’t have confidence that Leftwich knows how to fix it. The same problems that have plagued the offense since the preseason – third downs, short yardage, red zone, scoring – all have remained unsolved.

QUESTION: What similarities can be drawn from this season’s debacle to Todd Bowles spiraling out in his tenure with the Jets?

ANSWER: Another great question. I’m not terribly familiar with his situation in New York, since I’ve exclusively covered the Bucs for the past 27 years. One thing I will say is that Todd Bowles started five different quarterbacks in his four seasons with the Jets. That’s never a good recipe for success for any coach on any team. Bowles inherited Tom Brady this year, so that doesn’t really apply in Tampa Bay – yet. We’ll see who is under center next year.

Bowles is only seven games into this season. He got off to a great start with road wins at Dallas and at New Orleans, but it’s been a struggle since then. The offense has regressed and has a real amount of predictability to it, which is troubling. The defense doesn’t seem as stout as in years past, and some of the highest-paid players aren’t playing like Pro Bowlers. That too is alarming.

It will be interesting to see what Bowles does, especially on offense. Does he make a change at offensive coordinator and fire Byron Leftwich? Does Bowles turn to an experienced play-caller like Clyde Christensen? Or does he go in a completely different direction with a guy that is much newer to the Bruce Arians’ system and might come up with some fresh ideas like assistant wide receivers coach Thad Lewis?

Will Bowles make a change this week, or wait to see what happens after the Baltimore game on Thursday night? Or will Bowles not pull the trigger at all and ride out the year and make some coaching changes next year if they are still warranted? Quite frankly, it’s too early to tell about Bowles just yet. He’s getting hit with some early, unforeseen adversity. We’ll see how he responds to it.

QUESTION: Does draft status have anything to do with Luke Goedeke starting? I thought when Nick Leverett came in he did well. Then they bring Goedeke back and it’s more of the same.

Bucs LG Luke Goedeke – Photo by: USA Today

ANSWER: I agree with you. I thought Nick Leverett clearly played better than Luke Goedeke in Sunday’s 21-3 loss at Carolina. I hope Leverett gets the chance to start this Thursday against the Ravens. The idea to platoon Leverett and Goedeke was stupid on Sunday. Just make a decision and go with it.

Yes, I believe the plan was to draft Goedeke in the second round and start him. To his credit, he played as well in camp and in the preseason as Leverett and Brandon Walton, so the tie went to the higher drafted player. But all second-round picks are not created equal. Ali Marpet, a former left tackle at Hobart College, is a better athlete than Goedeke is. It’s been a more difficult transition going from right tackle at Central Michigan to left guard in the NFL.

I’m not damning Goedeke by calling for him to be benched. He can still develop into a quality starter in time. He just might need to sit back, watch and develop behind the scenes. Robert Hainsey benefited from a redshirt year last season learning behind Ryan Jensen. I think it’s time to give Leverett a shot at left guard and see what happens against the Ravens for the whole game.

QUESTION: Everything seems so difficult and congested on offense. Other teams are able to create space especially in short yardage. Why not put Chris Godwin on the outside and Russell Gage on the inside once in a while to switch it up? The game plan looked different on Sunday, but still little hope.

ANSWER: The Bucs did do some different things offensively, so Byron Leftwich deserves some credit for trying. But ultimately the NFL is a results-oriented business, and three points was the unfortunate result offensively in Carolina. What I don’t understand is why Leftwich and the Bucs seem to think that getting tight with a “heavy” offensive package in short yardage is the way to go. It has rarely worked all season.

Why not spread the field with four wide receivers and run either Leonard Fournette, a big 240-pound back, or Rachaad White, a slippery back with better vision, against a lighter box? Force defenses out of goal line or base defense and into nickel or dime personnel with either 11 (one back, one tight end, three receivers) or 10 (one back, four receivers) personnel. That seems more logical to me.

Instead, the Bucs are bringing in more tight ends – on Sunday it was aging veteran Kyle Rudolph and a pair of rookies in Cade Otton and Ko Kieft – to block. All it’s doing is forcing defenses to load the box and make it more congested to run the ball. And why run behind a rookie left guard in Luke Goedeke and a new center in Robert Hainsey with the regularity that the Bucs have this season? It just doesn’t make sense. Spread the defense out and then run behind the two best offensive linemen – right guard Shaq Mason and right tackle Tristan Wirfs – more often.

QUESTION: What are the chances the Bucs fire Todd Bowles?

ANSWER: Very unlikely any time soon. The shortest tenure any coach has had under the Glazers was two years, and that happened twice. Greg Schiano got fired after going 4-12 in 2013 following a 7-9 season in 2012. Lovie Smith got fired after going 6-10 in 2015 following a 2-14 season in 2014. The Glazers gave Smith another season after winning just two games in his first year as head coach – and that was a season when Tampa Bay didn’t even win a home game.

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

Bowles should survive for the 2023 campaign unless the team doesn’t win another game. I just don’t see that happening. There’s a chance the Bucs turn things around, and the NFC South division title is still there for the taking. Despite a 3-4 record, the Bucs have a 2-1 record in the division. Winning the NFC South grants a team an automatic bid to the postseason and a home playoff game – regardless of the record. That’s still attainable for Tampa Bay.

Bowles does need to make all of the right moves starting now, though. He inherited this coaching staff from Bruce Arians when he turned the team over to Bowles late in the offseason – on March 30 to be exact. That didn’t allow Bowles any time to make adjustments to the staff, or add any of the free agents he wanted, as free agency started two weeks prior to Arians’ retirement.

The Glazers are fond of Bowles and made him the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the NFL after winning the Super Bowl. He’s not an outsider. Bowles is a proven commodity in the eyes of the Glazers and has some goodwill and trust built up over the years. He’ll get the benefit of the doubt for now and the time to make some changes going forward. Again, barring a complete collapse, Bowles will be the head coach next year – and I would guess with some new assistants.