Thomas McGaughey, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ special teams coordinator since 2024, has been relieved of his duties. While the headlines might naturally gravitate toward the dismissal of offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard, because let’s face it. Touchdowns sell tickets, the firing of McGaughey signals something deeper and perhaps more desperate happening inside the walls at One Buc Place.

The End of the Road for McGaughey

He joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2024, tasked with stabilizing a unit that often flies under the radar until disaster strikes. For two seasons, he was the guy making the calls on fourth down, orchestrating the coverage units, and trying to squeeze every ounce of field position out of the roster.

While specific metrics for the 2025 special teams drop-off weren’t the headline of the day, his departure, coupled with the other staff changes, paints a clear picture: Todd Bowles is looking for answers, and he’s running out of places to find them. When a head coach starts firing coordinators on both sides of the ball (or in this case, offense and special teams), it’s rarely a sign of a team fine-tuning for a championship run.

A Pattern of Instability for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

If you’re a fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you’re probably suffering from whiplash. The dismissal of McGaughey is part of a broader, dizzying trend of turnover under Bowles.

Consider this: Josh Grizzard was fired after just one season. Thad Lewis, the quarterbacks coach who worked with Baker Mayfield for three years, is gone. And now McGaughey is out. For five straight seasons, Bowles has had to reconstruct his offensive staff, but extending that volatility to the special teams room suggests the foundation is cracking.

The Pressure Cooker in Tampa

The reports confirm Bowles is returning for the 2026 season, but he is doing so on arguably the hottest seat in the league. The late-season collapse that saw the Bucs crater after a promising start wasn’t just about Baker Mayfield’s drop in completion percentage or Mike Evans getting hurt. It was a systemic failure to close out games. And where do games get lost when the margins are razor-thin? Special teams.

Field position. Missed tackles on punt returns. Inconsistency in the kicking game. These are the silent killers of a head coach’s tenure. By firing McGaughey, Bowles is acknowledging that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers can no longer afford to be mediocre in the margins. He is stripping the staff down to the studs, betting that fresh blood can inject life into a team that looked exhausted and out of ideas by Week 18.