The Bucs’ defense is an absolute mess right now and it’s tough to trust that head coach Todd Bowles has the answers. Tampa Bay went from allowing over 500 yards to the Falcons on Thursday Night Football to giving up 27 points in one quarter against the Saints. They then allowed another 500 yards to the Ravens earlier in the week on Monday followed by giving up 394 yards and four passing touchdowns to Kirk Cousins in a 31-26 loss on Sunday.

With all the worries about how Tampa Bay’s offense may look without Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, the offense wasn’t the problem for the Bucs. The defense is by far the bigger issue, and while they looked better in the second half, they ultimately couldn’t get the stops that were necessary at the end until it was too late. They held the Falcons to a field goal attempt on the final drive, but Atlanta got the ball with 6:52 to go and it wasn’t given back to Tampa Bay until one minute and one second with no timeouts.

What’s Going Wrong For Todd Bowles And The Defense?

Everybody wants to know what the problem is with this defense. Also, is Todd Bowles going to continue calling plays? It’s never been as bad as it is defensively with Bowles since he came to Tampa in 2019. He’s had some brilliant moments for sure, we can point to the 2020 Super Bowl, but as for the 2024 season, it’s been few and far between.

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

“What’s not happening is we have about four or five plays a game where we either miss a tackle or we’re not dropping where we’re supposed to and we give up a big play,” Todd Bowles said. “I’ll continue to call plays.”

Generating pressure wasn’t an issue previously until Sunday. Tampa Bay had recorded 17 sacks in their last four games going into this rematch with Atlanta. Outside of defensive tackle C.J. Brewer, who surprisingly had two sacks in the game, the pressure was nowhere to be found. Bowles discussed what some of the issues were.

“I think our edge guys have to be better at getting chipped,” Bowles began. “And still understanding how to pressure the quarterback other than letting the chips knock them off their game a little bit and getting a little frustrated trying to force things. We have to do a better job of gaining it, we have to do a better job of learning when to get off the chip blocks.”

Personnel Changes Coming For The Bucs?

With as poorly as the Bucs defense has been, something has to be changed, right? If the scheme doesn’t differ, maybe going in with other players will solve some problems. Todd Bowles did make one adjustment in subbing in cornerback Josh Hayes for Tyrek Funderburk, but that wasn’t enough. Bowles has often been too slow when it comes to making personnel changes in his career and once again it’s rearing its ugly head.

Falcons WR Darnell Mooney and Bucs CB Tyrek Funderburk and ILB K.J. Britt – Photo by: USA Today

“We look at personnel changes every week and see what’s best for us,” Bowles said. “Sometimes we can’t do anything but we’re doing everything this week to try to put the guys out on the field that will hopefully help us get better and kind of go from there. If we don’t have them, we don’t have them, but if we have them on the team, we’ll definitely try to put them in there.”

The first thing Bucs fans would like to see is getting inside linebacker K.J. Britt off the field on third downs. Britt has been a liability in pass coverage and has been exposed ever since SirVocea Dennis had his season-ending injury. When Britt and Dennis were platooning everything worked well, but the Bucs don’t have that luxury anymore. A simple solution would be going to J.J. Russell or Vi Jones, but Bowles doesn’t feel that Jones specifically is up to speed just yet.

“There’s probably only one [player] that can do it and he has to get caught up to speed,” Bowles stated and later clarified that he was speaking about Jones. “At the time, he wasn’t caught up to speed. Everybody else was more of a MIKE linebacker or pretty much the same from an athletic standpoint and K.J. [Britt] was the smartest of the bunch.”