Todd Bowles is still leaning hard into the kind of defense that has defined his time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and through five games of the 2026 season, he’s not showing much interest in dialing it back.
The biggest clue is the blitz rate. According to Pro Football Focus, Tampa Bay has sent extra rushers on 45.8% of opposing dropbacks through Week 5, which ranks fourth in the NFL.
The Buccaneers have blitzed on 82 of 179 dropbacks, behind only the Minnesota Vikings (78.5%), New York Jets (52.4%) and Washington Commanders (51.2%). The league average is 35.1%, so Tampa Bay is operating more than 10 percentage points above the norm.
That’s the Bowles blueprint in a nutshell: disguise the pressure, mix in delayed blitzes, send linebackers and defensive backs, and make the quarterback figure out where the heat is coming from before the snap. It’s designed to force mistakes and create chaos.
But it also comes with a built-in gamble. When extra defenders come after the quarterback, somebody has to vacate coverage, and if the rush doesn’t get home fast enough, those openings can become easy throws for quarterbacks who recognize pressure quickly.
That’s where the bigger question lives. Is Tampa Bay blitzing this much because Bowles wants to, or because the defense can’t consistently get to the quarterback with a standard four-man rush? A front that can create pressure without selling out in coverage gives a defense far more freedom, especially against offenses built around quick throws.
None of that means Bowles should scrap the blitz entirely. His pressure packages have worked before, and the emergence of players such as David Walker gives Tampa Bay another possible piece in those looks. The real task is finding the line between disruptive and exposed.
That tension showed up against the Cowboys. Tampa Bay generated pressure on 40.5% of Dak Prescott’s dropbacks, and Dallas posted -0.31 expected points per play against the blitz, compared with +0.09 when the Buccaneers didn’t blitz. In that game, Bowles’ pressure looks did exactly what they’re supposed to do: stress the protection and rush Prescott into quicker decisions.
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