New Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles spent four years as head coach of the Jets, and it did not go well: He never made the playoffs and was fired with a 24-40 record. But Bowles thinks the results will be different in his new job.
Bowles said that after he got fired, he looked within himself and saw things he needs to do differently.
“I think when you take a head job [for the first time] you have to wear a lot of hats, but you had never experienced wearing those hats,” he said. “When you understand that going in . . . without the experience I think you tend to do things a little differently. You have to be man enough to know when you can change things. Usually when people get fired they blame everybody else. The first thing I did was look within myself, and there were a lot of things I can do better.”
Bowles mentioned delegating to his coaching staff instead of trying to do everything himself as something he’ll be better at now, and Bowles has already inherited a successful staff from Bruce Arians rather than having to build a staff himself.
But the biggest difference is that the Buccaneers have better players than the Jets had. With the Jets, Bowles’ quarterbacks were Ryan Fitzpatrick, Bryce Petty, Geno Smith, Josh McCown and Sam Darnold. With the Bucs, Bowles’ quarterback is Tom Brady. That alone is the kind of change that can make a coach look like a genius.
