Bucs Coaching Staff Has Been Incredible Early

Despite facing two potential playoff teams and enduring a slew of injuries, the Bucs are 2-0. Some may say after they escaped Houston with a hard-fought win that they won the battle but lost the war. Nevertheless, they are undefeated in large part due to some fantastic coaching on both sides of the ball.

Bucs Head Coach Todd Bowles

Todd Bowles’ defense has been a revelation. The metrics don’t show it yet, but the mechanics are there. Bowles is implementing several changes to the defense he has rolled out over the last several years. The one everyone has been clamoring for – more man coverage – is here and in force.

Per Sports Info Solutions, the Bucs ran man coverage just 26% of the time last year. Through the first two games of this season that number has been leveraged up to 56%! And thanks to an improvement in the play of his secondary and a pass rush with extra juice they are succeeding in those situations. Opposing quarterbacks have completed just 55% of their passes against the Bucs man coverage while averaging just 5.4 yards per attempt.

Bowles has rotated his coverages and disguised his way into some creative looks that have forced opposing quarterbacks to take an extra beat and hitch before trying to attack. One of my personal favorites is when he rotates to Cover 2 out of a 7-man front with Antoine Winfield Jr. dropping from a mugged-up position in the A-gap to run the pole as the middle linebacker gaining depth.

Moreover, Bowles has shown an adaptability in his game planning from week to week that he hasn’t displayed in the regular season previously. In Week 1 he held off his worse demons and reduced his normally high blitz rate. Against the Falcons he attacked Michael Penix Jr. with five or more rushers just 28% of the time. That was a 9% reduction from 2024.

Despite the reduction in assets, the pressure rate his defense was able to create went up from 36% last year to 44% against the Falcons. More impressively, Bowles took up one of the more successful defensive trends in the NFL recently. He still brought extra defenders on early downs, but really pulled off on third down, trusting his four-man pass rush to get home. His blitz rate on the money down went down from near 50% last year to 31% in Week 1, and his defense still created pressure 42% of the time and allowed a -0.33 EPA/play.

Move to Week 2 and Bowles was back to sending extra rushers. Was this a sign of him returning to old habits? Perhaps, but I’m not so sure.

It’s no secret that for the second year in a row Houston’s offensive line has struggled to protect against the blitz. The Texans allowed a 75% pressure rate against the blitz in Week 1. Bowles was able to similarly disrupt Houston’s offense with extra rushers leading to five pressures, a sack and -0.66 EPA/play. On third down those results only improved for the defense.

Make no mistake. Bowles has put together some fantastic game plans that have held the Bucs’ opponents to less than 20 points per game.

Offensive Coordinator Josh Grizzard

This may be a bit more under the radar, but Josh Grizzard has been similarly adaptive and impressive. Against the Falcons the Bucs had a screen rate of just 12.5%. Those four screens went for just 12 yards as the Falcons defended the concepts well. Instead, Grizzard went with a heavier play-action menu, with 27% of quarterback Baker Mayfield’s dropbacks coming off the run fake. Mayfield was 6-of-10 on those attempts with a big-time throw and a touchdown.

Fast forward to Week 2, and Mayfield doubled his screen passes to eight. He hit on all of them for 61 yards and a touchdown. The touchdown score was a creative design for Emeka Egbuka’s third score of the season

3rd touchdown in 2 games for Emeka Egbuka!

TBvsHOU on ESPN/ABC
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— NFL (@NFL) September 15, 2025

But that play-action game from Week 1? Only three attempts against Houston’s relentless pass rush. Grizzard is recognizing the adjustment levers he needs to pull on a game-to-game basis and grabbing on for dear life. Through it all he has still been able to access a downfield element of the Bucs’ passing attack that his predecessor Liam Coen found elusive last year.

One would think with the offensive line juggling act Grizzard is weathering, he would take out some of the deeper concepts. Not happening.

Mayfield’s deep target rate is more than double what it was in 2024. And his average depth of target is 26% higher than last year. The Bucs are gaining 41% more yards on deep shots than a year ago and Mayfield has almost half as many touchdowns through two games this year than he did all of 2024.

Add in the success of the run game, currently ninth in yards per game, fifth in yards per carry and number one with a bullet in EPA/play and you have the makings of something special. Let’s not forget that Grizzard is doing this with an offensive line that if it had to be a character from a popular early 2000s comedy would certainly take on the moniker of Patches O’Houlihan.

As much as Coen was praised for his lean into a gap-based run scheme, he still ran a 60-40 split with zone at the peak of his powers. Grizzard has been over 80% gap in both games leading to unexpected results. Obviously, it’s early, but somehow…some way…the Bucs may have hit the nail on the head with their third straight offensive coordinator.

Positional Coaches

But this goes beyond the architects in Tampa Bay. Several position coaches are playing amazing roles on the periphery. I’m going to focus on two, but sure as anything, there are others who are right there with this group.

OL Coach Kevin Carberry

Run game coordinator and offensive line coach Kevin Carberry has led an admirable effort to keep the offensive line functional in the face of incredible odds against them. Just a year after his career year at left guard, Ben Bredeson has found another level at center. Bredeson’s 3.7% pressure rate allowed is 1.6% lower than last year and he has been integral to the line sorting through blitz pickups.

Bredeson has also been quite literally at the center of the team’s run success. This is a player who was fully available for any team last year after the O-line needy Giants let him leave in free agency. And the Bucs picked him up for a song.

Mike Jordan was even more written off than Bredeson. Tampa Bay picked him up off the couch late in training camp and were able to stash him on the practice squad after cut-down day. Jordan has not been a good player in the NFL over his previous five years in the league. And yet he was solid in his Bucs debut Week 1 and had perhaps the best game of his life against the Texans.

Carberry and his assistant, Brian Picucci, have been putting in work for over a year now. The Bucs offensive line was arguably the best unit in football at the end of last year, and while they are far from that standard to start this year, they have done an admirable job given the circumstances.

Grizzard highlighted Carberry’s efforts, along with that of Piccucci.

“They’ve done an unbelievable job,” Grizzard said. “We’ve gone against two really good fronts the first two weeks, and whether it’s from the scheme or the adjustments that we need to make with the line, or the scheme in-game to put our guys in the best position possible to make plays and get a hat on a hat and be the most physical unit – which I think we’ve done – is great to see. Those guys are not stuck in their ways on how we’ve done things and [are] open-minded on different options for us just to give our guys the best chance to go out there and win. Hats off to those guys.”

NCB Coach Rashad Johnson

Christian Izien. Tykee Smith. Jacob Parrish. Three defensive backs who all started for the Bucs as nickels in their rookie seasons. All three had a fantastic debut. All three worked with Johnson.

Parrish, the team’s third-round pick, may be the best of the bunch. That’s high praise considering how high I was on Smith last year. Parrish has been a revelation.

The Kansas State product allowed just a 77.1 passer rating when he’s been targeted. And he hasn’t been targeted much. Just four targets in 59 coverage reps translates to just a 7% target rate.

The craziest measure of his play thus far? Only two yards allowed in two games.

Two.

Three years in a row Johnson has made sure a rookie was prepared to thrive at one of the most difficult positions in football – the nickelback.