Bucs coach Todd Bowles.

When a team has a former offensive coordinator as a head coach with years of coaching experience on the offensive side of the ball, you’d expect at a minimum, the offense would be, well, average, right?

What Joe is getting at is, if an offensive-minded coach ran a team, you’d expect him to have an offense, barring major injuries, to be ranked in the teens at the very least, right?

So why shouldn’t the same expectations be placed on a defensive guy with years of experience under his belt in the NFL? And that’s what Joe is getting at with Bucs coach Todd Bowles.

The Bucs have only once had a passing defense ranked in the top-10 since Bowles arrived in 2019. That was 2022. Every other year with Bowles as the defensive coordinator/head coach, the Bucs have had a pass defense ranked in the 20s. In a passing league.

(For example, one could conclude Bucs offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard has been handcuffed by so many offensive linemen and his quarterback being hurt. That would screw up just about every offensive coach not named “Kyle Shanahan.”)

And Joe ran across another stat that is shameful for a defensive coach to have when his team hasn’t had major injuries.

In breaking down defenses by Sharp Football Analysis, when it comes to explosive plays allowed, only four teams give up a higher percentage of explosive plays than the Bucs.

Per Sharp Football Analysis, 6.9 percent of plays against the Bucs defense is an explosive play. Of those four teams worse than the Bucs, only two are potential playoff teams, the Bears and the Crows.

For those unaware, an explosive play in the NFL is a run of 12 yards or more and a pass of 16 yards or more.

Simply put, despite losing Calijah Kancey for most of the season, the Bucs defense has been relatively injury-free. Yes, starting corner Zyon McCollum went down recently, so that was almost addition by subtraction. And Haason Reddick missed a bunch of games, too. But compared to the Bucs’ offense, the defense has been relatively spared of injuries.

Grizzard could, in theory, hide behind injuries. Bowles cannot. Yet it is his defense that has folded like a cheap tent.

And it’s not like his defenses have been all that stingy aside from some seasons against the run. Props to FOX last week to finally dispel this wives’ tale that Bowles’ blitzes are somehow an unsolvable puzzle to opposing quarterbacks.

But, what do you expect from a defensive coordinator who regularly dismisses the importance of sacks from an edge rush?