It didn't take long for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to figure out a backup plan after missing out on hiring Mike McDaniel.
A day after McDaniel chose to go to the Chargers rather than come to Tampa, the Bucs hired former Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson to replace Josh Grizzard. It's a hire that isn't inspiring much excitement among fans, both because it comes after the team was so close to hiring McDaniel and because of how bad the Falcons' offense was down the stretch of last season.
There are very valid reasons to be concerned -- or even bummed out -- by the hire. Fans continue to point to Todd Bowles as a lame-duck head coach, a scenario that is scaring off top candidates and has the team headed toward a lost season in 2026. The vibes aren't very high in Tampa right now, but don't let recency bias blind anyone to how hiring Robinson has a lot of the same markings of a sneaky home run we've seen the Bucs hit at offensive coordinator before.
Zac Robinson is in a perfect position to prove all of the doubters wrong as Buccaneers OC
It's pretty undeniable that the Falcons offense was bad last season. There's no way to sugarcoat it; Atlanta ranked 19th in passing offense and 14th in rushing, something that was exasperated thanks to inconsistency and struggles late in the season.
What happened to the Falcons last year isn't the full picture of what Robinson offers, and it's unfair to judge him only by what happened in a broken season. To be fair to Robinson, the Falcons quarterback situation was a disaster with Michael Penix Jr.'s knee exploding again and Kirk Cousins looking every bit like a veteran who has aged out a prominent starting role.
Back in 2024, however, the Falcons offense ranked in the Top 10 in every top-line category. Atlanta was 10th in scoring offense, and with a Top 5 passing game behind that same combo of Cousins and Penix. It's not entirely Robinson's fault that the bottom fell out the way it did in 2025 and while he deserves some of the blame it doesn't suggest he's a bust.
Lest we forget that Robinson comes from the same Sean McVay coaching tree where the Bucs plucked Liam Coen. Both were on the same staff back in 2022 when Coen was the offensive coordinator and Robinson was his passing game coordinator.
If we're going to hold last season against Robinson then it's also worth taking into consideration all of the other stuff he's done in his coaching career that would otherwise be attractive qualities. His only other NFL coaching experience outside of being with the Falcons was with the Rams, so he's a student of the type of offensive mastery the Bucs could have looked into with someone like Nate Scheelhaase. He also cut his teeth as a position coach before working his way up, something that we saw the Bucs value in Dave Canales before hiring him away from Seattle in 2023.
Robinson also helped unlock a new level to Bijan Robinson's game last season, scheming him to average over 130 all-purpose yards per game. Imagine that being applied to Bucky Irving and all of a sudden the hire starts to have some serious upside.
It's also worth pointing out that the move already has Baker Mayfield's seal of approval. According to Ian Rapoport from NFL Network, Baker made a push for Robinson which should carry a lot of weight. The two have history together from their brief overlap with the Rams in 2022, which means there's familiarity with Robinson in the same way we saw Baker have a history with Liam Coen.
McDaniel would have been a great hire for the Bucs but we've seen them have the most success with candidates who fly a little more under the radar. Robinson isn't as unknown as Canales or Coen, but he feels more like a blend between those guys and the experienced play caller the Bucs were trying to find.
It's a risk, but for the first time since this seemingly endless cycle of hiring a new offensive coordinator every season started, the Bucs didn't have to dig too deep to find a candidate that feels like a potential home run hire.