Three Coaches The Buccaneers Should Bring Back

Big changes are said to be coming to the coaching staff for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Head Coach Todd Bowles will be returning, but it is expected that he will have to make meaningful changes to his coaching staff. I’m expecting several new coordinators as well as position coaches.

It might be a shorter conversation when talking about what coaches should be back. Despite some obvious shortcomings on the coaching staff, the Bucs do have some strengths there as well. Here are the three coaches the Buccaneers should bring back.

Honorable Mention – Charlie Strong

Strong just finished his first season with the Bucs as their defensive line coach. And while it wasn’t a spectacular season for this group, I think there were some good signs. Especially when you consider that they lost star pass rusher Calijah Kancey in the second game of the season.

I thought Strong did an admirable job working with rookie Elijah Roberts. The 5th round pick out of SMU played as an edge rusher in college. He had to learn how to play defensive tackle against bigger, stronger opponents and he has to do it on the fly after stepping in and being forced to start nine games.

I also thought that Logan Hall showed some flashes this season. The 2022 second round pick has never really lived up to expectations, so flashes are about as much as we can hope for at this point in his career. To be completely honest, I actually thought he was playing well consistently down the stretch under STrong’s guidance.

Skip Peete

I have a lot of issues as to how the Bucs deployed their running backs this season. Bucky Irving was used far too often as a work horse and the offense left Rachaad White on the sidelines too often. It really bothered me this year because the Bucs have three legitimately good running backs.

Peete helped Irving break out last year as a fourth round pick. He also helped Sean Tucker go from an undrafted free agent to an important part of the rotation. There were issues with the Buccaneers running game this year, but I really didn’t feel like that was a running back problem.

Bryan McClendon

Many would argue that the Bucs have the best receiver group in the NFL. When you have Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, that’s an easy conversion to have. However, it’s the wave of young guys behind them that really puts this group over the top.

We knew rookie Emeka Egbuka would step into the NFL and produce. That is the expectation of a first round pick; especially one that was as polished as he was coming out of college. He led the team in total yards this season. 

McClendon has also done a nice job working with last year’s third round pick Jalen McMillan and this year’s seventh round pick Tez Johnson. Both look like long term contributors and McMillan has looked like a long term starter for this offense. 

Kevin Carberry / Brian Picucci

Whoever is working with the offensive line has really done a great job. This unit was incredibly banded up this year. In fact, they never had their starting five play together at any point this season.

We came into this year feeling like the Bucs had a top five offensive line in the NFL after seeing them develop last season. I believe we will feel that way next year when these guys all return. The sooner they can get guys like Charlie Heck and Mike Jordan off the field the better.

With that said, it wasn’t all bad news regarding the depth of this offensive line. Dan Feeney was signed off of Buffalo’s practice squad and actually became a solid starter for the team. There was also a lot to like when we saw undrafted rookie Benjamin Chukwuma get spot starts. He was regarded as a raw but talented player coming out of college and now he looks like a reliable swing tackle thanks in part to his offensive line coaches.