Todd Bowles received more than one vote for NFL Coach of the Year

To say it was a rocky season for Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles would be to undersell just how wild things were. As the season wore on and defense struggled, calls for Bowles to be fired grew louder especially with the possibility of losing Liam Coen looming large.

A four-game losing streak that nearly derailed the season didn't do Bowles any favors, but the way the team clawed its way back certainly did. Despite all the things that went wrong and all of the largely overblown discourse about his job status, Bowles ended up leading the Buccaneers to a fourth straight NFC South title and a fifth trip to the playoffs.

Not only that, but he did what the Glazers look for year-to-year and improved. Tampa Bay finished with its best record since 2022 and logged its fifth 10-win season since 2002. Had the Bucs gotten a full season of Antoine Winfield Jr., Mike Evans, and other key members of the roster, perhaps things would have gone even better.

Even framing it that way suggests things didn't go well, when they absolutely did. Bowles took a team that was down to third stringers are certain positions and masterfully navigated a season that other coaches would have been crushed under the pressure of.

It's one of the reasons he's coming back for a fourth season and why he ended up with a handful of Coach of the Year votes.

Todd Bowles received more than one vote for NFL Coach of the Year

Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell walked away with the AP NFL Coach of the Year Award this year, beating out the likes of Dan Campbell, Andy Reid, and Sean Payton. While Bowles wasn't a finalist for the award, he still appeared on the ballot and his name didn't go unnoticed by voters.

After O’Connell was announced as the winner, the final voting tally was revealed and it had some rather interesting results. Todd Bowles finished 11th, tied with Eagles coach Nick Sirianni and collecting more votes than Ravens head coach John Harbaugh.

This doesn't fit the anti-Bowles bit that some fans seem terminally committed to, but it does pain an accurate picture of how important he is to the team. It's easy -- and justifiable -- to be a prisoner of the moment and get a little too caught up in things that go wrong. Losing sight of the forest by focusing too much on yelling at the trees is a common thing for fans of any team, but Bowles getting some Coach of the Year love is a reminder that things are much better than they seem.

In back-to-back seasons the Bucs have been faced with midseason losing streaks that would have ripped lesser locker room apart. Last year Tampa Bay went 1-6 after a surprisingly hot start, and this year fell into an 0-4 slump before the bye week. Both instances were followed by complete turnarounds, the likes of which we're not used to seeing with the Buccaneers.

How many times before have we seen the Bucs quit when the chips were down, or seem to have no hope of bouncing back when facing adversity? Tampa Bay has twice picked itself up off the mat to turn losing streaks around so tremendously that they ended in division titles, and Bowles is a main reason for that success.

Games are lost on the field but season are lost in the locker room, and it's clear that Bowles has created one of the healthiest cultures in the league. Not only is this reflected in how much the players love him and go to battle for him, but he's made brilliant hires to his staff. Both Dave Canales and Liam Coen used stints in Tampa Bay to go from relatively unknown to head coaches in just one year apiece. Josh Grizzard, the guy who is replacing Coen, is an internal hire which shows how strong the talent is in the building.

It hasn't always been easy with Bowles and he does have some legitimate weaknesses as a head coach, but the strengths have managed to outweigh those. We've seen that in how well the team has played over the course of his tenure and it's clear that some folks outside of Tampa Bay see it too.

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