HEAD COACH TODD BOWLES

(On his assessment of the 2025 season for the Buccaneers)
"It's disappointing we didn't get in. It's very disappointed. [It's the] first time in five years, so you kind of get used to it a little bit. But, we did it to ourselves. We did it to ourselves. We've got to take a deep evaluation, starting with myself. Once I do that, I'll evaluate the coaches and players and we'll go accordingly."

(On what the self-evaluation process is like for him)
"It takes a while. It's not a day [long] process. It's not a daily process. It's going to take a couple of weeks to unravel everything. It starts with me – once I get that together and go through things I can do better, and I can do better for the team and I can lead better. Then you check with the coaches and you try to figure out what we can do better as a staff and then we try to figure out what we can do better as players and put them in better positions and what we need and what we need to build on. It'll be an ongoing process."

(On how he structures his self-evaluation, for instance going game-by-game or looking at the overall scheme)
"It's a little bit of everything, from scheduling to evaluating yourself. It's not necessarily film. Film is a part of it once you get to it, but you don't start film the day after and start breaking everything down. You start breaking down decisions and things you want to do better, things you think you could do better and things that can help and go forward and see what type of team we have, what type of team we want. Are we coaching it the right way? Are they playing it the right way? It's an ongoing evaluation process. It's going to take weeks."

(On his early thoughts as to what went wrong during the Bye Week and why the team struggled afterwards)
"I don't have any early thoughts right now. It's still fresh, not getting in the playoffs. We've been doing exit interviews all day, so you don't really have a chance to sit down and evaluate a bunch of things until probably mid-week, as far as that's concerned. We know we lost some close games and we didn't make plays to finish the game. That's all [that] my early thoughts are right now."

(On if the Bye Week should have "refreshed" the team)
"It should have refreshed us but we had more guys injured that needed the rest that week, more than we got guys back. We just didn't execute some plays in the second half of the season. Like I said, it's always going to be coaches and players. It's never going to be one thing."

(On if he's met with the Glazer family and if he knows whether or not he will return in 2026)
"We meet this week. We evaluate like we always evaluate. It hasn't changed the last three years. We'll meet this week. I get up and come to work every day trying to figure out how to get better."

(On if he feels this team had enough talent to be able to compete for a Super Bowl)
"I feel like we had enough talent to win. The mistakes we made weren't talent-driven, they were more mistake-driven."

(On if he talked with all of the players earlier this morning)
"Yeah, we had a talk. We had a team meeting today. We talked about things going forward. The season doesn't start in September, it starts in the spring. Although it's voluntary, it does start in the spring – the camaraderie starts in the spring, the fundamentals start in the spring, getting in shape starts in the spring. You've got to get healthy – the injured guys have got to get healthy. Everything starts in the spring. It's a product of those types of things. We had that talk."

(On how much he thinks he needs to change about the defense, whether it's players or staff)
"We need to make some changes. Whether it's schematically or whether it's physically, we probably need to make some changes going forward. We'll evaluate that in the next coming days, seeing exactly what needs to be changed. Schematically, I know I need to make some changes depending on the players that we have coming back. Coaching wise, we need to make some changes as a whole as far as what we're doing on the field and how we're teaching guys certain things. Certain guys are probably good at certain things that we need to expose more of their good side as opposed to things that they're struggling with."

(On if he anticipates making changes to his coaching staff)
"It's an ongoing process. It's going to be the same – we haven't really evaluated anything else. Once I've started with myself, then I'll get down to coaches, then to players. I'll make those decisions in the coming weeks whether we need to do anything."

(On if he prefers to make complete evaluations before deciding whether or not to make changes to his coaching staff)
"You've always got to go through the evaluation process. You don't want to make a rash decision, you don't want to make a gut-wrenching decision and a quick decision. You want to have a calm head and you want to see what's best for the team and then you go from there."

(On if the Glazer family communicates changes they'd like to see made to him)
"We listen and we talk about football, but we don't really get into what we talk about because those are private conversations. At the same time, I coach this team and I understand football very well and I have a good feel for what we need and what we don't need."

(On if he would be open to relinquishing defensive playcalling if the Glazer family asked him to do so)
"That'll be a conversation we'll have. I really don't deal in hypotheticals right now. If it comes up, we'll discuss it and we'll probably go from there."

(On if the team needs an "ornery, more physical" player on defense to set a tone on that side of the ball)
"You want a bunch of ornery types on defense to add…We've just got to play it better. We definitely need those types of guys on defense. We have some, we need some more."

(On if he expects the team to be more active in free agency than they were last year)
"It's more of an availability thing. It all depends on what we have to sign and who's on our team that we've got to re-sign. A lot of that has to do with that, as well. It's not just go out and get a player when you know you have players up that you really need to come back that takes all that money up. It's a process. It's a matter of coming down to signing your own players when you have some really good players or going out and getting one that you're not sure of and exposing that. If you have the money…We always look at those types of things, but with the decisions we've made, it just hasn't worked out to where we can get a marquee player in. I don't think we needed that to win this year, I think we needed to execute better."

(On if there are specific areas that the team should have addressed more last offseason)
"No. I mean, you can say that in hindsight when you don't produce in certain areas, but there are areas going forward that we probably need to address. In hindsight, there are areas that we had where just a lot of guys got hurt. There are areas that we have where guys can play better and we can coach better, but you don't do that in hindsight."

(On the Buccaneers having their lowest sack total in the last several years)
"I thought it was a tough year, defensively. It starts with me, because I'm the [defensive] coordinator, as well, and the coaching staff, but we've got to rush better and we've got to cover better. It works together. Sometimes the rush got there and the coverage wasn't there. Sometimes the coverage was there and the rush didn't get there. It's not about the sacks – it's more, for us, about the pressure and making the quarterback get rid of the ball and be incomplete. I don't think we did that consistently."

(On if he has a gut feeling about whether LB Lavonte David and WR Mike Evans will return next season)
"We both had long talks today, individually, separately, and we had our private conversations. I think they've earned that right to make that decision when the time comes. They're both [the] heart and souls [of] the Buccaneers and it's just a matter of once they get over the pain and the wound and see how they feel and think clearly, then we'll kind of go from there. But, we've allowed them to make that decision so we'll wait and see."

(On if QB Baker Mayfield's injuries forced Offensive Coordinator Josh Grizzard to alter the offensive scheme)
"No, it did not."

(On if he can divulge the extent of Mayfield's injuries during the 2025 season)
"I mean, he got banged up. Whether it was the knee, shoulder, hand, elbow…Like everybody else out there at other positions, everybody gets banged up throughout the year. He's tough. He's going to play through injuries. I think everybody out there throughout the league was playing through injuries, so I don't think that's any different than anybody else. He might have been bumped around a little bit more and gutted it out, but we had a bunch of injuries and a bunch of guys playing with injuries. I don't think it was any different for him."

(On if Mayfield might require any surgeries after the season)
"I have not been told that at this time."

(On Run Game Coordinator Larry Foote saying the reason the team signed OLB Jason Pierre-Paul was partly due to the energy he brings, and if the team will look for more high-energy players this offseason)
"I think we evaluate differently every year based off what we didn't see from the year before in our team. We try to evaluate differently and bring guys in that are a little different from the guys that we have. I think the juice factor…It's probably not a juice factor. The effort is there. That's not saying they don't have juice, but certain guys have a different type of energy when they come in and, probably more from an energy standpoint [or] from an energizer standpoint, probably more of that fact that I think [Larry] Foote was talking about."

(On his assessment of Offensive Coordinator Josh Grizzard in 2025)
"Again, that's part of the evaluation process. We haven't even gotten to the coaches yet. I can't evaluate coaches and tell you guys before I even talk to them and go through the whole process. [In] the first year, he learned a lot. He learned a lot of things. We had a lot of injuries but he learned a lot of things week-to-week – things that he can take with him and learn from. We'll evaluate it from there as we go forward in the next couple of weeks and we'll see."

(On what he would tell to Buccaneers fans who don't think he's earned the right to return in 2026)
"All I can do is coach and be myself. I've earned the chance – I've won three straight division titles, so that says a lot as far as I'm concerned. I don't really have a message for fans other than true fans are true fans and we're going to try to do our best to go out there and win for them. They're going to feel how they feel, but that's not a coach's problem. The coach's problem is to make the team better and that's all I'm looking forward to."

(On if he understands why Buccaneers fans are frustrated with the 2025 season)
"I understand their frustrations, I understand our own frustrations, as well. It's well-warranted and it's well-warranted within the building, as well."

(On who is accountable for the execution mistakes throughout the season)
"It starts with me – I'll take it all. I'm the head coach. It starts with me. I have to take all of that and I have to get that fixed. That's what my job description is and that's what I should do. It starts with me, it goes down to the coaches, then it goes down to the players."

(On why the team was so inconsistent on special teams in 2025)
"You can say [that] there's a myriad of things right there. You can say it was the kickoff coverage, you can say we got a couple of kicks blocked, you can say guys didn't make plays, you can say we can coach it better. There's a whole bunch of things that went wrong this year where we weren't on the plus side of things on special teams. Those are part of the things we'll unwrap, as well."

(On CB Jamel Dean saying that players felt they were prepared during the week, but ultimately realized that they maybe weren't as prepared as they thought once the games started)
"We examine everything. I don't worry about how guys feel, I worry about how guys play. If they're prepared during the week, you've got to be prepared on Sunday. I'm sure he was just talking [but] whatever that was, I didn't see it. I don't really have a comment on that."

(On if the team having so many walk-through practices negatively impacted the team)
"I thought it hurt in the middle of the season. We really needed to get some work done and we didn't have enough bodies to get it done. But, a lot of guys have done that. We've just got to be mature enough to be able to handle that and be ready to play, regardless."

(On why he chose not to make a change to the coaching staff when the special teams unit was struggling this season)
"Who would you like to get? It's an evaluation process. Sometimes it's the players, sometimes it's the coach – you've got to evaluate them both. As you go through the season, you make that evaluation process and that's the thing we're doing right now."

(On if the team tried to make a move at the trade deadline this year)
"We look at everything. We always look at trade deadline moves. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it hasn't. It hadn't this year."

(On if he thinks the team will be more aggressive this offseason in terms of turning the roster over)
"It's too early to tell. We still [have] to unravel a lot of things from the season and we've got to see who's free? Who's not free? What can we bring back, what can't we bring back? What we need, what's available in the draft, free agency-wise…There's a lot to unwrap in the next coming weeks and we've got our work cut out for us."

(On his thoughts on the team's tackling and communication breakdowns)
"That was the hardest part of this season. We've definitely got to be better at that. That starts in the spring, as well…Both."

(On how long his evaluation of the coaching staff might take before he comes to any conclusions)
"Days, a week, maybe two weeks. We'll see."

(On how he feels like the team responded as the season came to a close, and if he believes there were any players who weren't entirely bought in)
"I think we have a very good locker room. I think we have a very good locker room. You have guys that are stars and playmakers and you have role-playing guys. I think everybody played hard. I don't think we played smart. I think we were in all these ballgames, where they were single-digit ballgames that we've got to figure out how to win. Some of that is coaching and some of that is playing. We've got to do a better job of finishing games and doing the little things right when the situation occurs."

(On if he has an opinion as to why QB Baker Mayfield was not as effective down the stretch of the season)
"I wish I had an opinion on that. I didn't like it, number one, I didn't like it. We threw a bunch of fourth quarter interceptions and whether that was scheme or whether that was players, we've got to be better there. Those are part of the things that shot us in the foot – there were many things, but that was part of it, too."

(On his assessment of RB Bucky Irving's season)
"I think he was more impacted by his own health, initially, with the ankle and the shoulder. He missed a couple of weeks there, then, coming back, there were a bunch of injured guys [on the offensive line]. He fought and he played hard, he just didn't have the breakaway runs he had last year."

(On if the team's instability on the offensive line impacted offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard's ability to craft a game plan)
"I don't know if it hurt it…He might have changed some plays, but that happens every year, all year, throughout the season with everybody. We've got to find ways as coaches to put us in the best [position] to move the football. At times, we did. I don't know if it hurt it as much, it just made us play differently at times."

(On if he believes he will be back considering the fact that he's doing a press conference while other teams have already announced their coaching changes)
"I [am] just thankful that I wake up every morning and I have a chance to go to work. I can't worry about other coaches or what they do. I just know what my job is and what I try to do."

(On if he has any thoughts on the Atlanta Falcons moving on from Head Coach Raheem Morris)
"[He is a] good friend, good coach…He had a couple of tough breaks. He's a very good football coach. Hopefully he lands on his feet."

(On if it's "baffling" that the team couldn't pull out wins at the very end of the season once most players were healthy)
"It's unfortunate we didn't come away with more wins to make the playoffs. It's not even that time…It doesn't matter who was back and who wasn't back, we just didn't play well enough to win those games."

(On if he can pinpoint why the team didn't play well in December when they had previously done so in the 2023-24 seasons)
"Not at this time. As we unravel everything in the next couple of days and couple of weeks, we'll see."

(On if it was disappointing that younger players like CB Zyon McCollum and LB SirVocea Dennis "didn't develop to the extent that he wanted to see")
"I thought McCollum was developed, I thought he looked in the backfield with his eyes too much. I thought 'Voss' (SirVocea Dennis) got better as the season went on, especially in the run game. He can be a lot better. We had a good talk today about things to do better in the future. They still have a bright future in this league."

(On his assessment of OLB Yaya Diaby's season)
"He was clearly our best pass rusher up front. I thought he had a heck of a season, especially in the second half of the season. He was one of our best players. He plays hard, he plays with a lot of energy, and we just have to help him out with the other guys up front."

-BUCCANEERS-