Todd Bowles is not a popular man among Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans. The common response to the Glazers decision to unequivocally stand by the former New York Jets head coach while culling the rest of his staff was a combination of indignation and confusion, as the team almost seemed to give up on Bowles by the end of the season as they collapsed en route to missing out on the playoffs entirely in a very weak NFC South.
The common belief among NFL analysts is that Bowles is a mediocre coach who has been skating by for years and that his previously solid defensive principles in the 2010s with the Arizona Cardinals are no longer applicable to a complacenet coach; there is a belief that the game has simply passed him by.
But not everyone seems to think that. One of the quality pieces the Buccaneers added to their defense this offseason, former Detroit Lions inside linebacker Alex Anzalone, actually had nothing but praise for Bowles's defense. He said that while Bowles's defense is actually very easy for his players to understand, it is not so easy for opposing offenses and quarterbacks.
Alex Anzalone offers unique perspective on Buccaneers defense
Anzalone said of his new team's defensive scheme in an interview with the Bucs official site, via Joe Bucs Fan, “The past few years I’d go to [my] quarterback, I’d be like, ‘What do you think of this defense? Is this hard for you to process? Do you know what’s going on? Can you get an early read on them. Just because I’m curious about other defenses around the league, and I know this [Bucs] defense has come up a lot from playing the Bucs so many times — how difficult it is to really process it and diagnose what’s going on and the looks. It’s a defense that I feel like is complicated for the offense but in some ways it’s simple for the players on defense.”
It is honestly always refreshing to hear things from players that run counter to conventional wisdom or what fans or the media are saying, because narratives can become snowballs that roll down a hill and gain momentum without being properly challenged while everyone sits in their echo chambers.
Color most Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans skeptical with what Alex Anzalone is saying, and Todd Bowles will ultimately be judged on the success of his 2026 team in a do or die year as head coach. But Anzalone 100 percent knows more about football than most of the people talking about it, and he also has a unique perspective on what it's actually like for those outside Tampa Bay to face the Bucs defense.
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