Bruce Arians gets brutally honest about what’s holding the Buccaneers back

Despite the fact that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are back in first place and in control of a Top-4 seed in the NFC, things don’t feel as joyous as they should. Part of that has to do with the tough path the team took to get here, as a four-game losing streak nearly derailed the entire season.

Poor play helped lead to that but a rash of injuries hasn’t helped matters either. Just about every key player on the Bucs’ roster as missed at least some time, whether it be a few plays like Baker Mayfield or multiple weeks like Antoine Winfield Jr., Mike Evans, and Tristan Wirfs.

Injuries aren’t the only thing that that have held the team back but they’ve amplified a situation that has fans ready to make head coach Todd Bowles walk the plank. The poor play of the defense, which Bowles is in charge, has a portion of the fan base loudly calling for him to be fired and replaced with Liam Coen, who is running the offense better than we’ve seen in years.

Expectations for the Bucs are high, so coming up short the way the team has makes for a perfect storm of angst, but former head coach Bruce Arians thinks some of that is a bit misplaced.

Bruce Arians is the latest person to defend Todd Bowles as fans call for his job

On a recent episode of Scoop City, Diana Russini and Chase Daniel talked with Arians about life after football — not that he has stepped that far away — and what he thinks about how things are going with the Buccaneers.

Arians defend Bowles amid the team’s struggles, citing the team’s rash of injuries on defense as a key reason why things aren’t going as smoothly as they should.

“Right now the secondary — we’ve got to get some guys healthy to play defense. Todd is so hamstrung on what he can do, defensively. He loves pressure. He loves man-to-man but he doesn’t play man anymore because he doesn’t have any corners. Now with Antoine [Winfield] hurt, hopefully we get him back,” Arians said.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard a former Buccaneers player or coach stick up for Bowles. Gerald McCoy called fans “spoiled” for complaining about how things are going, citing the dark times of the last decade as a reality check. It’s a bit of a loaded argument but the sentiment was in the right place, as is the argument Arians is making in defense of Bowles.

There are a lot of things that have gone wrong this season and Bowles is hardly free from blame, but the intensity of the calls for his job are a bit ridiculous given the circumstances. It would be one thing if the defense was underperforming with everyone healthy, but Bowles isn’t playing with a full deck and still has the highest scoring defense in the last three games.

Criticism of Bowles is warranted in areas like failing to coach mistakes out of players and some of his bizarre clock management, but using a depleted defense against him is a bit flimsy. We’ll see how the final four weeks of the season go, as that will likely determine what happens as far as Bowles being back, but holding injuries that are out of his control against him and ignoring the patchwork job he’s done is a little unfair.

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