On Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced three additions to their 2022 coaching staff under Head Coach Bruce Arians. They are:
- Outside Linebackers Coach Bob Sanders
- Defensive Quality Control Coach Joey Fitzgerald
- Offensive Quality Control Coach Jeff Kastl
In addition, John Van Dam will take over as Tampa Bay's tight ends coach ahead of the 2022 season after serving as the team's assistant tight ends coach in 2021. Rick Christophel, who served as tight ends coach from 2019-21, will move into a new role as senior offensive assistant.
With the Jacksonville Jaguars' hiring of former Buccaneers Inside Linebackers Coach Mike Caldwell to serve as their defensive coordinator, Larry Foote is taking over for Caldwell, creating the opening for Sanders to coach the outside linebackers. Sanders previously served as a linebackers coach on Arians' Arizona Cardinals staff from 2015-17.
Fitzgerald replaces Tim Atkins, who was promoted to Assistant Secondary Coach after Cody Grimm's departure to join Caldwell as the Jaguars' safeties coach.
Sanders was most recently the defensive coordinator for the Orlando Apollos of the Alliance of America Football, working with Head Coach Steve Spurrier. Sanders previously spent 11 years (1990-2000) on Spurrier's staff at the University of Florida, much of it as the assistant defensive coordinator while working with a variety of defensive positions.
Overall, Sanders has more than 40 years of coaching experience, including 17 in the NFL, culminating in his three seasons with Arians in Arizona. He began his NFL career with the Miami Dolphins in 2001, serving four seasons as the team's linebackers coach. He also had stints with Green Bay, Buffalo and Oakland before joining Arians, including three seasons (2006-08) as the Packers' defensive coordinator.
Fitzgerald most recently coached the quarterbacks at Northwestern State in 2021. He has had additional coaching stops on the college level at Eastern Kentucky, the University of Virginia's College at Wise, Southeastern Louisiana and Louisiana-Monroe. He also worked for two seasons on Dan Mullen's staff at Mississippi State as a graduate assistant and later rejoined Mullens at the University of Florida in 2018 to work as a recruiting specialist. He got his start in coaching at Florida Atlantic in 2012 as a graduate assistant working with linebackers and defensive backs.
Kastl joins the Buccaneers after spending the past two seasons as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator at Indiana State. A former quarterback for the Michigan Wolverines, he has been coaching on the collegiate level for more than a decade, beginning with a two-year stint as a graduate assistant at Central Michigan from 2007-08. He had subsequent stops at Ashland, Auburn, Michigan, LSU and UTSA before joining the Indiana State staff in 2020. Kastl started as a wide receivers coach at UTSA in 2016 but later added passing game coordinator to his duties before a promotion to offensive coordinator in 2019.
