Baker Mayfield has constantly preached the importance of accountability being part of the culture for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but every time his head coach Todd Bowles opens his mouth to the media, he undermines that message, including at the NFL Scouting Combine with his comments on recently fired offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard.
It still feels almost inexplicable that Bowles kept his job this offseason after leading one of the worst collapses in Buccaneers history, as the team completely fell apart and almost seemed to quit on their head coach, visibly upset after a horrible Thursday Night Football loss to the rival Atlanta Falcons that essentially killed their season.
The Glazers are still smitten with Bowles despite him never being a good head coach - recall that he's the only coach to ever lead Tom Brady to a losing season. But the Buccaneers cleaned house for Bowles and hired him a new staff, firing offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard, who was an easy target after drawing valid criticism from fans for his playcalling as the unfortunate successor to Liam Coen (who is having an amazing start to life up north in Jacksonville).
Todd Bowles took a bizarre shot at Josh Grizzard
Well, it didn't take long for Bowles, who spent almost the entire season throwing players and other coaches under the bus instead of taking accountability, to fire unnecessary shots at a man when he is already long out of the building.
At the Combine, via Joe Bucs Fan, Bowles had the unmitigated gall to blame Grizzard, of all things, for being the reason why the DEFENSE was so bad. Yes, here it is, as relayed by JBF on X.com:
"Todd Bowles felt last year the time he was spending on offense to help out Josh Grizzard may have taken away his focus on defense. Bowles added d-line will play smarter this year."
That is an insane quote. Imagine your NFL head coach stepping up at a press conference and making the excuse that HIS defense being one of the worst in the league and responsible for a historic franchise collapse, is that his first-year offensive coordinator needed extra help.
Honestly, it's stuff like this that backs up why nobody around the Bucs besides the Glazers likes this guy. Bowles comes off as an egomaniac with none of the success of a guy like Bill Belichick or Jim Harbaugh who maybe deserves to have a bit of an ego. Bowles is a supposed defensive genius who is literally admitting he can't coach a defense.