It was a bumpy start to the offseason with Dave Canales leaving Tampa Bay to become the next head coach of the Carolina Panthers. While it took a bit longer than fans would have liked to hire someone else, it seems they made the right call.
The Bucs found their replacement for Canales in former Los Angeles and University of Kentucky coordinator Liam Coen. Just days after joining the Buccaneers, Coen has already begun adding to his coaching staff.
On Wednesday, Tampa Bay hired Kevin Carberry as the team's new offensive line coach. Carberry will replace Joe Gilbert, who left Tampa Bay to become Carolina's offensive line coach under Canales.
Liam Coen's first move as Bucs OC is hiring a coach away from Saints
Before joining Tampa Bay, Carberry was the offensive line coach in Los Angeles for the 2021-2022 season. Following that, Carberry was elevated to work alongside Coen as the Rams' offensive coordinator in the 2022 season and most recently helped coach up the New Orleans Saints offensive line last year.
In 2022, the Rams' offensive line was ravaged with injuries, and Carberry started 13 different offensive linemen over the 17-game season. In addition, Carberry was tasked with finding replacements for left tackle Andrew Whitworth and left guard Austin Corbett. With that, the Rams' offensive line struggled mightily, giving up 59 sacks, the most in the league.
During the 2021 season, however, the Rams' offensive line was among the best in the league, giving up just 31 sacks, the sixth-fewest sacks in the NFL. Los Angeles' offensive line also finished with a 4.9% mark on QB sack rate, 26.8% pressures allowed per drop back, and 2.67 seconds for pressure allowed on offense, which ranked seventh, third, and first in the NFL, respectively.
After working with the Rams' offensive line in 2021 and 2022, Carberry was let go in the 2022 offseason, and later signed with New Orleans to work as the Saints' assistant offensive line coach. Carberry's work in the Big Easy paid off, as the Saints' offensive line finished the season with a 0.53 Oline score (13th in NFL), 2.99 pass score (6th in NFL), and 1.08 negated blitzes per game (6th in NFL).
Of course, the added bonus of having poached him from the Saints -- no matter where he was on the pecking order -- makes the hire even better.
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