FAB 4. Bucs Coaching Staff Will Remain Intact

A 7-9 record for the 2019 Buccaneers can be viewed as a blessing and a curse.

It’s a curse because Tampa Bay finished with a losing record for the third year in a row and for the eighth time out of the last nine years. The Bucs also missed the playoffs for the 12th year in a row with the last postseason appearance coming in 2007 when the NFC South champions lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants.

The team’s 7-9 record could be a blessing in that the Bucs finished strong with a 5-3 record and could leave Tampa Bay hungry for the start of the 2020 season to build on that late-season momentum. The Bucs’ losing record also appears to be a blessing in that it kept the team’s coordinators – Todd Bowles on defense and Byron Leftwich on offense – off the radar of NFL owners for the 2020 hiring cycle.

Former Panthers head coach Ron Rivera – Photo by: Getty Images

Five teams fired their head coaches with Carolina the first to do so, but former Panthers head coach Ron Rivera wound up in Washington, which fired Jay Gruden and interim head coach Bill Callahan. Baylor’s Matt Rhule was the favorite to replace Pat Schumur in New York, but the Giants were stunned when he opted for the Panthers’ job instead. So they hired New England wide receivers coach Joe Judge. Dallas finally gave up on Jason Garrett, replacing him with former Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy.

The only job that remains is in Cleveland where the Browns fired former Bruce Arians protégé Freddie Kitchens after just one season. With all other vacancies filled the Browns can take their time with this hire and they’ve already interviewed seven candidates and will be interviewing Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels on Friday. The good news for the Bucs is that neither Bowles nor Leftwich is among the candidates for the Cleveland job.

The Browns have interviewed Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman, Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, and Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski. Cleveland also interviewed McCarthy, but he took the Dallas job.

Barring any last minute changes in Cleveland, it would appear that Arians’ entire 2019 coaching staff will return intact, and that’s a great thing for a young Tampa Bay team that showed a lot of improvement across the board over the second half of the season.

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

“I would hope so,” Arians said when asked if he expects his full staff to return at his year-end press conference. “I’m very pleased with the work that they did – all of them in all the phases. I saw growth in every area. I saw really good coaching in every area. I saw really young players develop that we needed have developed.”

Depending on who Cleveland hires to be its head coach, the Browns could pursue one of Tampa Bay’s assistants to become a coordinator, but the Bucs aren’t expecting that to happen right now.

Arians will turn 68 in 2020, and while he has four years left on his contract in Tampa Bay, no Bucs coach has made it to the fourth year of their contract since Jon Gruden in 2005. Granted, the Glazers fired Raheem Morris, Greg Schiano, Lovie Smith and Dirk Koetter, but the aging Arians could leave on his own terms before his contract expires if he encounters any health issues.

One of the reasons why the Bucs opted for Arians to replace Koetter was because there was a succession plan in place when he was hired. Arians brought on Bowles, who had four years of head coaching experiencing with the New York Jets, to once again run his defense, and chose former Cardinals quarterbacks coach Leftwich to call plays on offense.

The current plan is to have Bowles eventually take over for Arians in Tampa Bay whenever he departs, unless the right head coaching opportunity elsewhere comes along sooner. If that’s the case, it could be the charismatic Leftwich that succeeds Arians instead.

Bucs OC Byron Leftwich and HC Bruce Arians – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

While there is some angst over the fact that as of right now there remains just three minority head coaches in the league – Rivera, Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin and Los Angeles’ Anthony Lynn – the Bucs are the only team with African-Americans in all of its coordinator positions. Bowles is the defensive coordinator, Leftwich is the passing game coordinator, Harold Goodwin is the running game coordinator and Keith Armstrong is the special teams coordinator.

Arians has long been a champion for diversity in the coaching ranks, and even became the first NFL head coach to hire two women full-time on the Bucs coaching staff in assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust and assistant strength and conditioning coach Maral Javadifar. Arians’ equal opportunity approach mirrors that of the Glazers, who have become trailblazers in the NFL when it comes to minority hires.

The Glazers are the NFL’s first owners to hire three minority head coaches in Tony Dungy, Morris and Smith. There are 11 NFL teams that have yet to hire a minority coach on a full-time basis, including Dallas, the New York Giants, the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle, New Orleans, Houston, Baltimore and New England have never had a minority head coach in any capacity. Atlanta, Buffalo and Jacksonville have each had a minority interim head coach.

With Bowles and Leftwich staying in Tampa Bay in 2020, the odds of the Buccaneers continuing to lead the league in diversity by having a fourth African-American head coach in the near future greatly increase.