News broke on Tuesday night that the L.A. Chargers are hiring former Miami head coach Mike McDaniel to take over as offensive coordinator after the firing of Greg Roman. McDaniel interviewed for the vacant Bucs offensive coordinator position last week and was believed to be the team’s top choice to replace Josh Grizzard.

Last week, Tampa Bay also interviewed former Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, whom the team also had an interest in hiring, but Monken received a second interview with the Browns for their vacant head coaching position. If Monken does not get the head coaching job in Cleveland it is expected that he will reunite with John Harbaugh in New York as the Giants offensive coordinator.

Former Dolphins HC Mike McDaniel and Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Nathan Ray Seebeck

So with the top two offensive coordinator candidates off the board, what’s next for Todd Bowles and Jason Licht in the team’s search for an offensive coordinator? Pewter Report has learned that the remaining top three candidates appear to be former Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher, who is interviewing via Zoom with the Bucs on Wednesday and former Titans head coach Brian Callahan, who is getting a second interview with the team, according to Albert Breer.

With the team coming off a disappointing 8-9 record and Bowles on the hot seat after losing the NFC South to Carolina, Tampa Bay prefers to hire an experienced play-caller after Bowles has had to break in three offensive coordinators with little to no play-calling experience over the last three years with Dave Canales, Liam Coen and Grizzard.

Zac Robinson Could Be The Bucs’ Next Offensive Coordinator

With Mike McDaniel taking the Chargers offensive coordinator position, former Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson could be atop the Bucs’ list to replace Josh Grizzard. He interviewed with the Bucs over a week ago, as well as for the offensive coordinator posts with the Lions and the Eagles. Todd Bowles prefers to hire an experienced offensive coordinator and Robinson did that in Atlanta for the past two seasons with mixed results as the Falcons went 8-9 in back-to-back seasons.

Robinson had to deal with quarterback issues in each of his two seasons in Atlanta. The Falcons signed 36-year old quarterback Kirk Cousins to a massive contract in free agency despite coming off a torn Achilles in Minnesota the previous season. Cousins struggled in his Atlanta debut season and was benched for rookie Michael Penix Jr., the team’s first-round pick, past the midway point of the season.

Former Falcons OC Zac Robinson – Photo by IMAGN Images – Brett Davis

The Falcons continued to start Penix in 2025 and he produced mixed results for the team, but was eventually lost for the season with a torn ACL. That prompted Atlanta to once again turn to Cousins, but the 37-year old quarterback couldn’t deliver and the team finished 8-9 once again, which prompted the firing of head coach Raheem Morris and presumably the Falcons offensive staff with the arrival of head coach Kevin Stefanski.

The Falcons had the league’s 13th-ranked (22.9 ppg) scoring offense in 2024, but the unit fell to 24th (20.8 ppg) this past season.

Tampa Bay had the most recent offensive success under Liam Coen when he replaced Dave Canales as the team’s play-caller in 2024. The Bucs had a top 5 scoring offense and a top 5 running game under Coen, who also took Baker Mayfield’s game to new heights. Mayfield went to his second Pro Bowl appearance in 2024 after completing a franchise-record 71.4% completion percentage and throwing for 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns – all career highs.

Rams passing game coordinator Zac Robinson – Photo by: USA Today

After Coen left for Jacksonville to become the Jaguars head coach, the Bucs promoted Grizzard, the team’s pass game coordinator as his replacement. But Grizzard only had one year’s worth of experience in the Rams-based offense that Coen brought from L.A. under Sean McVay.

The appeal of hiring Robinson could be that his approach and playbook is more similar to that of Coen’s. Like Coen, Robinson has roots in McVay’s Los Angeles Rams offense. Robinson spent five seasons with McVay, elevating from the Rams assistant quarterbacks coach to passing game coordinator/QB coach before calling plays for the first time in Atlanta in 2024. Robinson was the Rams quarterbacks coach when Baker Mayfield was in L.A. for the end of the 2022 season. Those connections were enough to land an interview, and possibly the offensive coordinator position.

The Bucs will be bringing in former Titans head coach Brian Callahan for second interview, which means he could very well be in the running for the OC post. Like Robinson, Callahan does have play-calling experience as he did that in Tennessee for two seasons.

Will Tampa Bay also bring in Robinson for a second interview – or was his first interview good enough to ultimately land the job? After the team interviews Pitcher and Callahan again look for the Bucs to possibly make a decision by the end of this week.

Bucs Like Dan Pitcher, But He Lacks Play-Calling Experience

Wednesday marks the third time the Bucs will have interviewed Dan Pitcher for a vacant offensive coordinator position. Tampa Bay interviewed Pitcher twice in 2023 – once via Zoom and once in person – as the team was looking to replace offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich. In fact, the Bucs offered Pitcher and Todd Monken the job, but both turned down the offensive coordinator role.

Monken, who had just won back-to-back national championships with Georgia, elected to work with head coach John Harbaugh and quarterback Lamar Jackson in Baltimore. Pitcher elected to stay on with Cincinnati as the team’s quarterbacks coach and work with head coach Zac Taylor and quarterback Joe Burrow. Pitcher was then promoted to offensive coordinator to replace Brian Callahan when Callahan moved on to become head coach in Tennessee.

Bengals QBs coach Dan Pitcher – Photo by: USA Today

The reason the Bucs had to turn to Dave Canales, who had no play-calling experience at the time, was because word around the league was that Bowles’ job security was in jeopardy after coming off an 8-9 season in his first year as head coach in 2022, in addition to a bad home playoff loss to Dallas in Tom Brady’s final game. Coming off an 8-9 record once again, Bowles and the Bucs are hoping to hire an offensive coordinator with play-calling experience, which is something that Pitcher doesn’t have, as Taylor has called plays in Cincinnati.

Still, the fact that Pitcher is coming in for his third interview in total – the most of any offensive coordinator candidate since 2023 – makes him a strong contender as he has obviously interviewed well. Plus the fact that he has worked with a Pro Bowl passer like Burrow for several seasons and in Taylor’s prolific offense certainly makes Pitcher an attractive candidate.

The Bucs have also interviewed Callahan, Lions pass game coordinator David Shaw, Cardinals quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork, former Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka for the job. But it feels like the team’s top options at this point are Robinson and Pitcher.

Last year, Tampa Bay interviewed Grant Udinski before he became the Jaguars offensive coordinator in title only, as well as Rams pass game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase. Both the 30-year old Udinski and the 35-year old Scheelhaase have been interviewed for head coaching jobs around the league. It remains to be seen if the Bucs circle back to either or both for another interview for the team’s vacant offensive coordinator job.