Todd Bowles on Bucky Irving’s Vision | The Todd Bowles Show | Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Todd Bowles on Bucky Irving’s Vision | The Todd Bowles Show | Tampa Bay Buccaneers

[Music] Welcome into the Todd Bull show. Casey Phillips here with head coach Todd BS. First of all, congratulations on that win and uh tell me just a little bit about what that meant to the team and and the the vibe in the locker room afterward to get back in that win column. The vibe was confident yet not satisfied. Obviously, we lost three before that. So, to get back in the win column is important for us. It’s huge. which we know it wasn’t perfect, but none of these games are going to be perfect. It’s going to be hard fought all the way till the end and those guys gutted it out. Uh be I’m sure Baker being able to play was a huge boost to everybody, not just from his play standpoint, but just even the excitement of knowing he’s fighting through it to be out there with the guys. So, um what was that like to see everybody’s reaction when they knew he’d be able to go and then how his play also lifted the team a bit? I think it was his first scramble that everybody took a deep breath, but he slid one time, he got out of bounds one time, and he made some plays early on to keep some drives going when everybody saw he was fine. I think that picked everybody up. Yeah. What were your thoughts on his uh the sliding and and scrambling ability and what goes through your head when he has been banged up a little bit and you see him still take off occasionally? I think he’s very smart. I think he’s very competitive, which you can’t take away from him, but he’s very smart and he knows what to do with the ball when he has to. And how did it progress throughout the week in terms of, you know, the practice reps? And I know Teddy was getting some of that and just the way it affected the game planning and preparation to be a little unsure and how they were able to still work cohesively offensively when there was that uncertainty throughout the week. Wednesday, we weren’t sure at all because he was very sore. So Teddy took most of the reps even though it was a walk through. Thursday, Teddy took most of the throwing reps, but Baker started throwing some. Then Friday, he looked great. He went through a whole practice and he looked great out there and we scaled some things back and changed some things on offense so he didn’t have to learn anything new once he started playing. So it was kind of like a normal week as far as him from a mental standpoint. I know Baker also completed passes to nine players in the game which is his most in a single game uh all this season. So how important was that to not only have him back but to have so many different guys get involved and and why this game was the one that called for that? Need to start spreading it around a little more. You know, when they start keying on Mecca with Chris coming back and start keying on him, everybody else needs to get involved, and the more we can spread the ball around, the more dangerous we’ll become. I know getting Bucky back also had to be a pretty big boost uh for the team, for the offense, and and how everybody felt. So, what was that like seeing him as he’s been progressing through practice and then getting to actually run out there and it be a home game with the fans all, you know, chanting for him and excited to see him back? It was great for him. It was great for the guys as well to see him out there. He played like he never left. you know, he really got the ball moved around in there, took some hits. Uh, he passed protected, he understood assignments, and he showed his quickness like he never left before. And what was the plan of was he going to be on a a pitch count of sorts or what was the idea of how you I know you’ve been ramping him up in practice for a while, but in terms of the game itself, uh, how many carries you were planning on him having and just what he showed about how fully ready he is to be 100%. It was more or less game flow. We knew he was 100% but it was a matter of how the game was going then how he was running just to having his first time back out there. But he made some good runs early on. So we put him back in there and kept putting him back in there and he got warm. Uh take us through his touchdown that ended up getting to count. We know there was another one which I’m sure that had to be so sad as you know we think he get we get his favorite his first touchdown back. So what was it like to get that second one and what worked well on that play? I think we blocked it, but it was supposed to go inside, but when they Tristan end up logging it or Luke end up logging it coming around that he saw a hole outside, he hit a crease and he can take off from there. He has great vision and once he saw that hole, he took off and win. During the game, he reached 2,000 scrimmage yards in his 22nd career game. He’s just the third player in franchise history to hit that in their first 25 games. And the only running backs drafted since 2018 that have hit that in the first 22 are Squan Barkley, Jir Gibbs, Josh Jacobs, Jonathan Taylor. So, he’s in pretty elite company there in terms of how fast he’s come out uh early in his career. So, what is it about him that in terms of especially scrimmage yards being able to do it both ways, why he’s been able to reach this so fast even when he did already miss several games? He can make the first guy miss. He he has a great knack and ability to make the first guy miss no matter how clean they are every single time. And that that takes a special skill set to do. You can’t just teach that. You got to have that coming in. He has that coming in. And he understands or body language wise on the run, how to jump, cut, stop, cut, when to take off, run somebody over and go around them all the time. I know uh we mentioned there were some penalties that especially came in some pretty key moments and and uh removing a couple touchdowns. What’s the message to the guys about what you saw from the different penalties and what you felt like caused that or the thoughts of you know some penalties again more acceptable than others at different types of the game. So what did you see from those? Two of them were tough. I thought the one on Tristan was a bad call. That that was completely a bad call. And then the one on Taz that he ran up the field, I thought that was questionable. You can accept those. Those were tight and those were inplay calls. So, you got to accept those and keep doing what you’re doing. And then I know that uh Tristan, let’s even though maybe there was that penalty, redeemed himself a bit with a touchdown. Uh tell me, I mean, go, he’s already been one of the only ones to ever be all pro at right and left tackle. We got an allp pro wide receiver now out here. Well, if he drops 100 pounds next year, I know why. He’s going to want to change positions. He’s going to want to become an allp pro tight end. Yeah, it sounded like he was asking for maybe that tight end number moving forward. Uh he’s our first offensive lineman and 300 pounder to get a touchdown this season across the NFL. He’s the fifth in franchise history to do it. Uh tell me about that play getting implemented, the decision behind calling it and and just what it kind of did for the the team and the offense at that point in the game. Heck of a play call by Grizz. Very creative uh to keep the two receivers off the line and make him report eligible and put them on the line. uh for him all week in practice. We were running it and I know we can’t get his head any smaller right now since he caught that touchdown, but it was a hell of a play design. Great catch by him. Yeah, not going to fit in that helmet uh this next week. I also imagine that outside Grisard’s door now there’s one of those take a number things as all the big men on the team are now uh asking for their chance for this. Do we feel like this all the big men cannot catch so they they cannot make that request. I I like it. I like it. Um, and then you know, man, talking about catches, Chris Godwin coming back, um, and playing at this level now in this game. I know he’d come back a little bit before, but huge plays, 25, 31, 22 yards. His first couple were setting season longs for him. Uh, this was his most receiving yards since week three of LA or week six since of last season because of the injuries. So, um, why was this game the one where suddenly he’s just going off for these huge plays and and just how nice is it to see that Chris Godwin back? He’s a lot healthier. You know, he got his feet wet last week, but he’s a lot healthier now running in there and then he didn’t think about too much and he’s a great player when he’s healthy. He was healthy yesterday and he made some great plays. All right, we’re going to take a quick break here on the Todd Bowl Show. We’ll be right back. [Music] Welcome back into the Todd Bowl show. Casey Phillips here with head coach Todd BS. Uh having Ben Bredesen back as well, I’m sure was a big boost. So, what did you see of how he looked and just what we realized he has come to mean to this offensive line of center, guard, whatever he’s being asked to do? Well, Ben is the key clog, key cog in that whole offensive line because he’s very intelligent. He’s got more years on everybody else, but he can point out things and help guys out more than anybody down there. So having him back kind of settled everything down from a protection standpoint, helping Graham out from a line st standpoint, helping out Tristan, helping out Feny, helping out Luke. So having Ben back back and he’s he’s very tough as well. So having him back was a big plug for us. What did you see from the offensive line as a whole in both pass and run? Pass game, I thought we had some time. They showed us a lot of different looks from a blitz standpoint that we have to get out of, but they’ve sended more than we could block and we had to get rid of the ball. But when we had him four on five or five on five, I thought they did a good job. Uh, take us through Antoine’s interception. I know already Buret came in with the NFL history’s lowest interception rate for his career at 1.3% of his passes. Uh, now I know, you know, he doesn’t have necessarily the reps as some other guys, but still he’s thrown plenty of passes in this league. So, not an easy guy to intercept. to take us through that play and and what the defense as a whole knowing multiple guys were involved did so well. Not at all. It was Dean actually who tipped it. He should have caught it actually. The ball was thrown behind him and he that would have been a tough catch for him, but he got it up in the air and wins always going to the ball and when he goes to the ball, good things happen for us. I know you guys now have 11 interceptions this season, which is the seventh most in the league, and 18 takeaways overall are the sixth most in the NFL. How do you feel hearing those numbers of where you guys stand and knowing, you know, how much that’s been something you’ve emphasized since last year? We’ve been emphasizing it. Got to have more. Got to have more. We can get our hands on more balls and we can punch more balls out. That play in particular, what did that do for, you know, the momentum of the game and the defense at that point? I know at that point on that drive, they’d been marching down fairly effectively until that point. So, what did that do on that drive and just what it meant to the game and the defense at that point? I think it calmed everybody down. I think early on they were dinking and dunking us and getting plays and guys getting frustrated. So to get that play kind of settled everybody down and we played ball after that. We had talked about in recent weeks the need to limit some of the the bigger explosive plays. How did you feel like that worked in in this game and if if it was better why was it? I thought for the most of the game it was fine. I thought it was great most of the game. At the end they got two plays. They got some plays in because we missed the quarterback a few times. We got to get the quarterback on the ground. But the overall scheme of it and how they executed it for the most part was good. Uh how about Yaya and Vita? They did both get a sack and get him down. Tell me what worked on those two individual plays. I thought this game our four guys up front without pressure got the most pressure they’ve gotten on the quarterback and we missed about five or six and left out there, but they were coming off the ball and they were in the back field and we just got to make the plays. I know Vita now has the ninth most sacks in franchise history. And on a day like that one where you’re honoring Simeon Rice and you see Warren Sap there and you see all these different guys that that this is a franchise that’s had a lot of sacks in its history. Um what does that say about him and where he’s at at this point of just especially in that statistical category to be up there in that top 10? Well, you hope to see him walk out there one day and get retired. But Vita Vita does everything for us. Like I said, he’s one of the key pieces on our defense and he’s the main guy in the middle that helps everybody else out. Whether he’s getting the sacks or whether he’s causing the sacks, he’s always around the ball and he’s always either he gets it or someone else gets it and he makes sure of that. Uh you guys held the Cardinals to three of eight, just 38% on third downs. Uh what went so much better in that category in particular? Execution. You know, we won first and second down to get them in third and longs. everything wasn’t third and short and everybody kind of executed and detailed their job. I know Cervasier uh led the team with 10 tackles. That was his third game with double-digit tackles this season and he added a quarterback hit. Where did this rank in his games that he’s played so far this year? One of his better games. He he played very solid football. He was really aggressive in the run game going downhill. He was where he’s supposed to be in the zone game. uh he made the last play on the fourth and two, fourth and three to get the game over with and he’s really coming into his own right now. Yeah. What are the biggest ways you’ve seen him grow over the course of the season being asked to do, you know, a lot for your defense in the starting role? Just mentally, I really think Levante’s helped him out a great deal just understanding his job and being where he’s supposed to be and not trying to do everyone’s job. It’s great to tell everybody where to go and what to do, but at the same time, just do your job and everybody else will do theirs. Someone who’s been doing his job all year is Tiki Smith. We saw him recover the fumble that was forced by Logan Hall. Um that was Taiiki’s second fumble recovery this season and the first force fumble of Hall’s career. Uh what did they do well on that play? Well, Logan got the strip. Uh he went down, took a double team on, came off and got his hand in there and punched it out and Tai got the recovery along with W’s interception. Ironically, those two are around the ball all the time in practice. So, it’s fitting that those two come up with the turnovers. All right, we’re going to take another break. We’ll be right back here on the Todd Bull Show. [Music] Welcome back into the Todd Bowl show. Casey Phillips here with head coach Todd BS. Uh, so I know that we knew going in. McBride, uh, that’s quite a tight end they have over there. And incredible to be leading the the league and the team in a lot of different categories. And, um, tell me what you feel like you guys did well facing him and and then what happened on his touchdown. I thought we really limited him in the first half. Obviously, uh, we had some coverages that went very well for us. in the second half. I thought between the quarterback getting out scrambling, I thought we played the wrong leverage as far as where we should be on him when he got the touchdown, but he’s a great receiver and he’s going to make a play or two. How do you feel like the defense has done overall against tight ends this year and and what would be something that you’d hope would get a little bit better throughout the rest of the season against them? Oh, I’m trying to remember. For the most part, a lot of people a lot of tight ends. Uh for the most part, I don’t think they got down the field on us from that standpoint. uh if somebody got open, it was more or less probably a zone coverage or anything like that. You like to clamp down on the receivers a little bit more. The tight ends inside are a little easier to take care of just because you have more people around them as opposed to the outside guys. But there’s some great tight ends coming up in this league that run like receivers and they block like tackles and they’re very hard and they’re very big to come by. So, we just got to do our due diligence to make sure we know where they are. You know, it’s been nice to ask so many different questions about how cool it’s been to get different guys back after so many other shows. It was about how many people we’d lost and then uh so we already talked about, you know, Bucky and Bredesen and all these guys and now, you know, Hassan, you were able to get him back as well. What did you see from him in his first game back and and the hopes of and expectations of him throughout the rest of the year? I thought he got off the ball well. I thought he got off the ball well for his first time back in pads and he got back there. He just got to finish and close the deal. I know Anthony Nelson got a nice stop to cause a turnover on downs in the fourth quarter. How did you see he and just the rest of the outside linebackers played particularly in the run game? That was huge for us. That was fourth and one. Obviously they got to about midfield to make that stop. It’s just like having a turnover. So Nelly always comes up with a play and you rely on him to come up with plays and he had to take on the block on McBride and he got off and made a play. I thought Bradwell played very hard. I thought he made some plays in the run game as well and Yaya who started us off with the sack. He gets going so those guys contributed. I know that um the special teams had some big moments. I know the punt coverage seemed to be pretty solid for most of the game and uh would love to hear your thoughts on just overall special teams and and Chase and Riley Dixon’s games as well. Riley gave us a chance. He did a great job punting him inside the 20. Uh Chase got the long field goal. He seems to be an expert at kicking 50s something yard field goals and I thought the coverage unit had gotten better from the past two weeks. And then as we briefly mentioned earlier, Simeon Rice got inducted in the Ring of Honor. I know you were a little bit busy at halftime, so I didn’t quite get to hear his uh speech, but would just love to hear what you remember of Simeon and his playing days and how cool to see a guy like him go in the Ring of Honor. I know he was a sack specialist and I know he could come around the edge all the time. every time you looked up, he could come around the edge and he was getting the sack and he was making plays and I was like, “Who is this guy?” And I started watching Tampa more as I got to see him. He was a great player. I mean, he was a very good player. He should be Hall of Fame worthy. I love it. All right, we’re going to take one more break here on the Todd Bowl Show and we’ll be right back. [Music] Welcome back into the Todd Bowl Show. Casey Phillips here with head coach Todd BS. So, looking ahead now uh to these remaining games, four of the final five are division, and I know that it is fairly typical to try to backload some of those division games, but four or five uh is is quite a load here at the end when it’s going to be what comes down to the the playoff situation. What are sort of the unique pros and cons of that many that close together at the end of the season? I don’t think the division matters as much as playing them in the end or in the beginning. The fact is you got to win them all. Whether you’re playing in the division or out of the division, you got five games left. We have to win them and we got to take them one by one. They happen to be division games. We control our own destiny and that’s what we’re focused on right now. We’re going to go day by day and we’re going to take them one at a time. So, when you look back at the first matchup against New Orleans, what are some of the things that you learned from that that would still apply this second time? Well, the quarterback’s different. He played in the second half. Obviously, he’s gotten a lot more experience in games since we’ve last played them. We know they play tough on defense and we got turnovers to win that ball game. We have to win the turnover battle for us to make this game look the same. And then I know Alvin Chimera has had a, you know, a bit of an injury recently. Overall, what do you see as their rushing game? They’ve got other threats like Deon Neil, Taesm Hill, Esme, like what are the some of the things that you feel like rushing wise, whether or not he’s in there, how much that affects what they might be able to do or not. Well, with Kamar out, Neil and Taesm has taken the bulk of the work. Obviously, we know Taes, he can do it from the quarterback position or the fullback position, and Neil is the other one that carried the ball quite a bit. So, they they create quite a tandem with those two. How different do you feel like we are now than the first matchup? We talked about some of the ways that they’re different in terms of now their quarterbacks had a little bit more time. How do you see us being different than we were in that first matchup? I think we’re getting some guys back that we didn’t have in the first matchup and we kind of know how they’re going to play us. They know how we’re going to play them and we just got to battle. I believe that Chris Olive is one of the most targeted, if not the most targeted wide receiver in the league. Um, what are the ways that you’ve seen them use him and the threat that he can be? Well, they move him around. He plays all three positions. He plays X, he plays Z, he plays slot, uh, he runs shallow routes, he runs deep routes, and they’re really moving him and getting him the ball every way possible, trying to expose his ability that way. So, we got to make sure we know where he is at all times. And how about the trenches on both sides of the ball for them? Defensively, they’re very tough. They’re hard to move. They’re very prideful group and they play like that. Offensively, they got some big linemen and they try to outmuscle you and then take it from there. Knowing that also you then have a Thursday night football game after that against another divisional team, how does that affect the timing and game planning of what you guys are trying to do maybe this week? How do you make sure that you try to spend the time to maybe look ahead to that but not look over this next game that’s also so important? do everything you can to prepare for the Saints. Then toward the end of the week when it lightens up a little bit and you get a start on Atlanta. And what have you noticed about their secondary from this last matchup and just in general some of the challenges that they pose? Very good at coverage disguise. They don’t give up a lot of plays. So we got to be very smart where we putting the ball at. Understanding they make the ball go over the middle and they got a lot of guys in there to try to get the ball. So we got to be very smart. And looking at now these games again, you have this one and then there’s a shorter week on Thursday night football. How does that affect which guys might be available when and how you try to ramp guys up from injury things like whether it be, you know, Mike Evans or Jaylen McMillan and how that might affect it? Just might see how they do in practice. You know, it’s all about how they do practice and how they’re coming along and how they’re feeling and how they’re fitting in. Then we make those decisions as they come. All right. Well, coach, thanks as always for the time and good luck this next week. Thank you. [Music]

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Team Reporter Casey Phillips sits down with Head Coach Todd Bowles following the Bucs’ Week 13 victory against the Arizona Cardinals in the 2025 NFL season. HC Bowles discusses the team ‘not being satisfied’, RB Bucky Irving’s return and WR Chris Godwin Jr.’s performance.

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