Todd Bowles’ seat is hot in Tampa, but there is still a path to keep it from burning all the way through the winter.
The Buccaneers sit at 2-5, and that record has plenty of people ready to move on from Bowles right now. Tampa Bay has been uneven all season, but the strange part is that the games have usually been close.
The Bucs have already played a mix of good and bad opponents, and they’ve stayed in nearly every one of those contests. Their point differential is actually positive at +11, though that number is heavily boosted by last Sunday’s blowout of the Carolina Panthers.
Even if that result is stripped away, Tampa would still only be at -19.
The defense is the part of this team that gives Bowles his best argument.
On Bowles’ side of the ball, the Buccaneers have put up numbers that demand attention. They rank third in the NFL in yards allowed at 294.7 per game.
Against the run, they’ve been even better, giving up just 77.3 rushing yards a game, which ranks second in the league. And when it comes to points, Tampa Bay has been better than anyone else.
The Bucs have allowed 138 points total, or 19.8 per game, the fewest in the NFL.
That unit has been up and down, sure. There’s the dominant showing against Carolina, and then there’s the fourth-quarter collapse against the Pittsburgh Steelers two weeks ago. Still, the defense has been good, maybe even great, in 2026.
“Todd Bowles is the head coach, so he’s the coach of the whole team and not just the coach of the defense.”
Special teams has also taken a noticeable step forward. Bowles spent the offseason reshuffling his staff, and one of the biggest moves was bringing in Danny Smith as special teams coach. That decision has paid off, and it goes in Bowles’ favor when the retention case gets made.
The offense is a different story. Bowles hired Zac Robinson to lead that side of the ball, but that move has not produced the kind of results fans wanted.
Robinson has already drawn plenty of criticism in Tampa, and most weeks the offense has looked stuck. The Carolina game was the exception, but that performance had more to do with Carolina’s four turnovers and Tampa’s physical edge than with some brilliant schematic breakthrough.
Robinson’s offense sits in the back half of the league, and if that continues, the hiring will be judged harshly. But the picture is not complete yet.
The Bucs just turned in their best game of the season, and both of their wins have come in the last three weeks. In each victory, the run game showed up and the line of scrimmage looked better than it had before, which at least hints at some growth.
The real question is whether Bowles can do enough to change the conversation around him.
A lot of fans had already made up their minds before this season began, and some were against Bowles from the moment he got the job in 2022. Across four and a half seasons in charge, he is 39-43 and has three NFC South titles to his name. Last season ended with Tampa missing the playoffs for the first time under him, and this year feels even more unstable.
So what does survival look like?
It starts with one non-negotiable: the Buccaneers have to make the playoffs. Anything less should send the team straight into a January head coaching search. Even a return to the postseason probably won’t be enough on its own, because nobody would have called seven or eight wins plus an immediate playoff exit a successful year before the season began.
If Tampa sneaks into the field, the postseason performance has to matter. The Buccaneers would likely be an underdog in their first home game, and Bowles would need to win it.
From there, the next game would almost certainly be on the road, again as a heavy underdog. That would have to be more than just a repeat of 2023, when Tampa won a playoff game before losing the next one.
That kind of finish is not forward progress.
The only real runway for Bowles comes if the Buccaneers keep pushing. If they win enough down the stretch to make the playoffs, then win multiple games against better teams, and end up one step away from the Super Bowl, his case becomes much stronger.
In that version of the story, the season would look less like a collapse and more like a team that needed time to settle in after adding new coaches and new pieces, getting Baker Mayfield back healthy, and navigating part of the year with an undrafted rookie free agent quarterback. It would also highlight Bowles’ development work with players like Zyon McCollum and Jacob Parrish, along with the defense’s best stretch in years.
If Tampa reaches the NFC Championship Game and shows up there in a competitive way, that may be enough for Bowles to keep his job into 2027.
It sounds like a long shot. It might even sound ridiculous to some fans. But Bowles is still in the fight.
In Other News...
Buccaneers Pulled Off A Rare Panthers Play Fans Had Never Seen
Special teams rarely become the headline in a divisional game, but Tampa Bay got an unusual lift against Carolina when the kick unit turned pressure into points. A blocked extra point flipped a routine try into a momentum play and helped stretch the Buccaneers advantage in a game that quickly got out of hand on the way to a 43-13 win.
The sequence stood out even more because it was a first in franchise history, with the Bucs cashing in on a blocked extra-point return in a way fans had never seen before. For a team that has leaned on defense and field position in plenty of big moments, it was another reminder that sometimes the smallest play on the scoreboard can have the biggest impact. [Read more 🡒]
Todd Bowles Just Gave Buccaneers Fans A Bigger Coaching Debate
As the NFL heads into Week 8, the pressure meter is starting to climb for several coaches, and the Buccaneers have found their way into the conversation for reasons they would rather avoid. The recent dismissal of Colts general manager Chris Ballard has only added to the sense that front offices are not waiting until the end of the year to make hard calls, and that kind of backdrop always sharpens the focus on Tampa Bays sideline.
Todd Bowles is among the names being discussed in the latest hot-seat chatter, a reflection of how quickly the temperature can rise when results start to slip. For the Buccaneers, the concern is not just about one rough stretch but about whether the organization believes the direction is still pointing the right way, and whether the coming weeks will settle the debate or make it louder. [Read more 🡒]
Bucs Suddenly Face A Trade Deadline Decision Fans Never Wanted
At 2-5, the Buccaneers have reached the kind of crossroads no contender wants to face in October. The passing game has been uneven, some of the rosters core players are getting older, and yet the NFC South is still open enough that a quick turnaround would keep Tampa Bay in the mix, even if the team is still chasing the division leader.
That is what makes the trade deadline conversation so uncomfortable around One Buccaneer Place. The Colts have already shown how far a team can go in rethinking its direction with midseason moves, and the Bucs are now weighing whether they should resist that kind of sell-off or at least consider it if the next stretch goes badly. For a team built to expect more than a rebuilding discussion, even having that debate is its own warning sign. [Read more 🡒]