Todd Bowles continues worrying trend with Buccaneers
By Rob Leeds
The Buccaneers special teams unit has been bad. Todd Bowles continuing to kick from too far out is only making this unit look even worse.
Say what you want about Todd Bowles and his defense, but the Buccaneers head coach is in over his head in his job as the leader of the other sides of the ball.
At the end of the day, everything comes back to the head coach. Bowles may not be the one calling the plays on offense, but his decisions from the top have an impact on the offense and special teams unit more than the Bowles defenders would argue.
Bowles has clearly hurt the offense with his conservative style of coaching that wants to keep the defense off the field and fresh. He is doing the same thing with the special teams unit by continually putting Ryan Succop in a position to fail.
Succop has been money from up close over the past few years, something that no Bucs fan should turn their nose at, but distance has been a different story.
A quick look at Succop’s 81.1% make rate would make a lot of fans think that this has been a bad year for the veteran kicker, however, a good year has actually just been overshadowed by a miserable 2/7 on field goals from 50 yards or further.
The data is piling up that the Bucs don’t need to make attempts from this distance, especially when Succop has never been the guy from that distance (seven attempts from this distance being a career high), yet Todd Bowles seems to ignore this when he keeps making this decision.
There is a lot to not like about what Bowles has done this year. Putting a player in a position to fail over and over again while actively hurting the team’s chances of winning games might take the cake.
History tells us that a better move in a position like this is going for it. The odds are high that Succop misses a kick from this far out. The odds are going to be much better that Tom Brady and the offense can find a way to make a conversion to move this sticks, even if those odds aren’t great on their face either.
Bowles just isn’t the answer for the Buccaneers. People will start to see that soon enough.
Buccaneers coach looks silly after yet another mistake. light. Trending
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