Bucs head coach Todd Bowles and general manager Jason Licht. (Photo credit: Cliff Welch)
The tonal whiplash in the Tampa-St. Pete area from day to day today is a story of two separate teams: a baseball team inching closer and closer to the World Series by sweeping the New York Yankees in the Bronx to book a ticket to the ALCS, and a football team who flies into Arlington to play the Cowboys on Thursday Night Football as the worst team in the NFL.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have not relieved a head coach of their duties midseason since the termination of Ray Perkins in 1990, and nearly four decades later, as the seat heats up for a Todd Bowles team that’s 0-4, it’s not just time to discuss a coaching change, but a regime change.
The Bucs have never fired a General Manager during a season, and the closest they ever have gotten was, in fact, current GM Jason Licht’s predecessor, Mark Dominik the morning after the NFL season ended alongside head coach Greg Schiano back in 2013.
But here we are, well over a decade into Jason Licht’s tenure as general manager, and one can argue it’s a successful tenure overall as the Bucs have won a Super Bowl under his leadership, but as Bucs fans continue to erroneously tout ‘best GM in sports!’ when he’s at best the third best GM by a significant margin in his own city which only has three major sports teams, something doesn’t quite add up.
The more time goes on, the clearer it becomes. Let’s look at some facts. When Jason Licht hired Bruce Arians, most fans in the city were already willing to give up on the experiment. That came from a myriad of inexplicable decisions that kept the team in the dweller Dominik forced them into, most notably the 2016 draft decision that’s one of the biggest draft blunders of all-time. We shouldn’t forget in any conversation discussing Jason Licht’s legitimacy as a football mind that the man traded up to draft a kicker in the second round, and in doing so, not only did he give up crucial capital, but also did it for one of the biggest kicker busts in NFL draft history. The only decent player in that draft for the Bucs ended up being future Pro Bowler Luke Rhodes, and that’s a long snapper who never played a single snap for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Funnily enough, the Bucs haven’t drafted a Pro Bowler since the 2020 draft, where they drafted two. One was Tristan Wirfs. Wirfs is a fantastic player, but Wirfs is also the player Bruce Arians personally scouted and circled as a gamechanger. The other was Antoine Winfield. The last four future Pro Bowlers drafted by the Buccaneers were selected under Bruce Arians advisement in 2019 and 2020, with zero coming in the last five NFL drafts. In the 12 years that Jason Licht has been a general manager, there are as many Pro Bowlers to play a snap for the Bucs drafted by the eye of Bruce Arians than the rest of his tenure combined, and Arians only accounted for three drafts, coming in with a heavy say in the draft strategy as part of his agreement. That’s including Jameis Winston, who notoriously wasn’t the player they expected to be. To say the draft is a sore spot for Jason Licht’s tenure is an understatement, as the team consistently botches their draft day strategy.
When you botch your draft day strategy as much as Jason Licht does, that forces strong free agency to be a necessity. This is the one area where it’s a little dicy to truly attack the GM because he signed the greatest football player of all-time to come to Tampa Bay. The problem with bolstering his free agency argument with that is that Licht himself has noted that Brady was the one who made the pitch. From there, the big signings were Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, and a number of former Brady teammates in New England. Essentially speaking: the Super Bowl offense was Tom Brady, Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, and then Brady’s entourage that were always going to sign wherever Tom Brady signed. That’s not a reflection on the general manager, it’s a reflection on the quarterback. Funnily enough, if Tom Brady doesn’t sign here, Jason Licht was putting all of his eggs in the basket of…Kyle Trask QB1. Kyle freaking Trask.
The same quarterback who, when signed here, noted he was excited about Arians aggressive playcalling on offense and his ability as proven throughout his career with a number of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time being under his guidance, to have a collaborative playbook. The moment Tom Brady wanted him gone, Brady retired. Suddenly, Arians is forced into a front office spot and Brady is no longer retired, and Brady goes out under the new leadership he himself wanted and sucked so badly he immediately retired again. The decision of the general manager to not back up the head coach that completely changed the culture in Tampa is the reason the Bucs are currently under advisement of one of the worst head coaches in team history, and that’s saying quite a bit considering their coaching history. I mean, Dirk Koetter? Sam Wyche? This coaching history isn’t exactly filled with the Bill Walsh’s of the world.
That inability to back up the head coach, a crucial miscue, seems to have had Licht 180 on how he backs up his management team. On multiple occasions, he’s told fans publicly on his Twitter to ‘find another team to root for’ if they aren’t enjoying the Todd Bowles experience. The problem isn’t so much that Todd Bowles is bad, which he is. Because of Todd Bowles, Raheem Morris is no longer the worst clock manager in team history. Todd Bowles has no fire, isn’t aggressive with his decision making, doesn’t have an overly creative playbook (which, no defensive coach does. That’s why offensive coaches usually win because their teams know how to pivot on the field), and he’s absolutely horrible with the media. The problem with Bowles even goes beyond those issues we can see. Let’s take a look at Mike Evans. The greatest offensive player in the history of the Buccaneers. A true Tampa lifer. Licht himself has gone on record to say that the Bucs made a ‘significantly higher financial offer’ to Mike Evans than San Francisco. That man wasn’t leaving for the money, the moment that video dropped last year of him angry with the coaching costing us games is the moment everybody should have known that there was nothing Tampa could do to get him to stay, and it’s entirely on Todd Bowles. This core group clearly does not want to play for him.
But Bowles is still working with what he’s given. What did the team do in free agency this year? Outside of making Baker Mayfield one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in football, something that’s already looking like a bad move, his biggest deal was for…Alex Anzalone? A $17M contract for an aging Alex Anzalone should be paying dividends, right? Not the dividends you’d want. Beyond being slow to react, there’s an absurd volume of penalties and he’s constantly blowing his coverage a month into the season. Scheme can only take you so far when your roster is clearly underperforming, and the answers to address that is to downgrade your front seven and overpay to extend the guys who aren’t getting it done. The question becomes outside of Tom Brady and the people that can directly because of Brady, what huge free agent signing has made a statement and done anything to help the team? At this point, if you aren’t counting a cheap flyer on Baker, and rather significant in-real-time signings, you’d have to go back to Ryan Jensen in 2019?
The guy can’t draft, the guy can’t identify quality free agents, and he’s so far in bed with Todd Bowles that we now have to address another elephant in the room: the offensive coordinator. Under Arians, that position was whatever. Was Byron Leftwich good? Of course not, but let’s be honest about who was calling the shots on offense. Since, Tampa’s had a slew of really good offensive coordinators, notably Dave Canales and Liam Coen. Canales is now in the division and while he struggled in the first year or two, Carolina’s culture has really been impacted for the better, with their offense showing major steps forward since he let Idzick take the reins on the snap-to-snap playcalling. Meanwhile, Liam Coen’s doing a tremendous job with a lot less in Jacksonville. The biggest problem isn’t that they’re gone. Canales was the coordinator on a Tampa team where firing Bowles was realistically not that tangible of an option, you hate to see him leave in the division, but it is what it is. Coen, however, is not just inexcusable, but him leaving is the least of our worries, considering the Licht regime did everything in their power to vilify Coen in the media on his way out. Was Coen perfect and professional in the process? No, but that doesn’t mean the Bucs going after the illness in his family was okay, nor should it mean that an offer to make him the highest-paid coordinator in the NFL hinges entirely on him not even being allowed to interview for a larger position within the league. So we’re clear: NFL league-wide policy forbids the kind of agreement that Licht leaked to the press to sway public opinion on Coen. This is under a clause in the 2020 amendments to the Rooney Rule, making any condition Licht claims Coen had in violation of league-policy. You’d think a GM of one of the 32 NFL franchises would know that. But when the verbal agreement is ‘we only give you a contract if you snub the team,’ even if it isn’t enforceable, you’re putting the man’s employment at jeopardy. That’s the kind of institution Licht runs as GM, and I guarantee you he knew that it wasn’t an enforceable agreement, but squeezing Coen could have forced him to stay. For anybody who says ‘he’s unprofessional not honoring a verbal commitment,’ I’d argue violating the rules of the league you’re supposed to uphold to manipulate somebody into not taking a promotion and then making them the enemy is far more unprofessional.
But his unprofessionalism is okay in the city because he goes on Tampa radio stations and talks about how much he loves AC/DC and he’s such a fun, normal, relatable dude! Look, I get it’s a “Long Way to the Top,” but when the strategy of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap have you at 0-4 in the worst division in football, it’s time to light some TNT and blow it up.
None of this reflects the Bucs record under Licht. So, without further adieu, I present to you the record from when Arians and Brady were de-facto running the team and the record from when Licht has full control:
With Bruce Arians as coach *or* Tom Brady as quarterback: 44-29, 6-2 in the playoffs.
Without either Arians or Brady: 54-83, 1-2 in the playoffs.
For those who aren’t great at math, that means with Arians or Brady calling the shots for him, Jason Licht has had a sub-40% winning percentage as general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs have had a winning percentage a total of two times in the seasons that aren’t coached by Arians under Licht. This will now be the tenth season under the Licht regime not coached by Bruce Arians. One of those seasons was a 9-8 record. The early years would be relatively simple to excuse due to the incompetence of Mark Dominik, but those were the years he was drafted up to take a kicker bust in the early rounds and thought that Kyle Trask was a high-end quarterback prospect, who was also drafted in the second round, mind you. In the years since, there’s no excuse. It’s just bad football that people want to blame entirely on the personnel Jason Licht himself thinks is his best option.
So as you watch the Bucs this year, remember that so far they’re the worst team in football at protecting the quarterback because they have no offensive line. Remember that part of the special teams struggle is that we’ve never even had a good punter under Licht. There was the 2023 season where Bucs fans thought Jake Camarda was really good for an average punt just slightly above league-average, but when you’ve never seen a good punter, a league-average punter looks like the second coming of Shane Lechler. For those who may be thinking ‘who gives a damn, it’s a punter?,’ I’m here to tell you that you massively undervalue special teams and field position, especially when your offense can’t move down field under a certain coach with certain players. Camarda lost the starting job a year later and is no longer in the NFL, primarily because average players regress to their means. When you see how inept the coaching is, don’t think about complaining because the GM who likes all of it will tell you publicly on Twitter to find another team.
The Bucs 0-4 start has been brewing for a long time, and people in Tampa have become the proverbial ostrich with their head in the sand because a bad football team is lucky to play in the worst division in football. Todd Bowles isn’t the sickness in Tampa Bay, Todd Bowles is the symptom. It’s the symptom of a GM who thinks he’s a good head coach, who also thought that hiring Dirk Koetter and Lovie Smith were good ideas, and the players on the field are the ingredients cooked up by a man who can’t draft and can’t fill in the gaps with free agency. But because Tom Brady and Bruce Arians took a flyer at the turn of the decade, if you even consider the idea that Jason Licht isn’t a football guru on par with Bobby Beathard, people in Tampa will say you’re a bad Bucs fan and know nothing about football because they can’t look themselves in the mirror, reflect upon the facts, and say ‘we were wrong to put Jason Licht on a pedestal.’ Those fans have earned Todd Bowles, they’ve earned the 0-4 performance, and they’ve earned a return to what it used to mean when we say ‘It’s a Bucs Life’ because they’ll gladly accept bad football if it means their terrible general manager isn’t the problem.