On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced new additions to their 2026 coaching staff, including quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer. Whitmer recently served as the quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator for the University of Indiana in 2025. Last season, Indiana crafted a perfect storybook 16-0 season en route to the first national championship in program history.
Under the tutelage of Whitmer, Hoosiers' quarterback Fernando Mendoza concluded the 2025 campaign with a nation-leading 41 touchdown passes and the coveted Heisman Trophy – Indiana's first. He won the Maxwell and Walter Camp Awards and became the only FBS quarterback since at least 1996 with multiple games of at least a 90 percent completion percentage and four touchdown passes versus Power 4 opponents.
Prior to his year at the collegiate level in 2025, Whitmer spent the previous four seasons in the NFL with the Chargers (2021-23) as an offensive quality control assistant and the Falcons (2024) as a pass game specialist. He worked with top-10 passing offenses in three of his four years in the NFL, including the No. 3 passing offense in 2021 and 2022, and the Chargers made the playoffs in 2022 as an AFC Wild Card. In 2024, he helped with the development of Michael Penix Jr., who was the club's first-round draft pick. While with the Chargers in L.A., Whitmer was instrumental in the ascension of Justin Herbert. No player had more completions (1,316), passing yards (14,089), or total touchdowns (102) over their first three years of a career than Herbert.
In 2026, he joins Todd Bowles' staff and reunites with Zac Robinson in Tampa Bay. Whitmer will work with Baker Mayfield, who is also a former Heisman Trophy winner, maximizing his potential. Since joining the Bucs in 2023, Mayfield ranks second in the league in touchdown passes and third in passing yards. In 2025, Mayfield rushed for a career-high 382 yards and carried the ball 29 times on third down last season, with 21 going for first downs (72.4% success rate). That was the second-highest first-down rush percentage on third-down attempts among all quarterbacks with 15-plus third-down carries and the fourth-highest mark in the NFL. Like Herbert, Mayfield has a cannon for an arm, can deliver throws from either direction while rolling to the right or left and is adept on zone-reads and play-action. Both can alter arm angles and Whitmer will strive to advance Mayfield's game in 2026.
