Bucs coach Todd Bowles.

The following comes from a man who has two Super Bowl rings to his name. One from the Eagles and a second from the Belicheats. So it’s not like his observations come from someone who has never played the NFL game at a high level.

The source is Chris Long. And hours before it was learned that Bucs coach Todd Bowles would be retained, Long recorded and published this Twitter video which is an excerpt from podcast “Green Light.”

He watched Bucs games and since the bye, the common theme Long came to is that the Bucs are poorly coached. Long has respect for Bowles and he didn’t call for Bowles’ dismissal, but could understand if that did happen.

One thing Long knows, something has to change with the Bucs.

“I don’t know where you go from here,” Long said. “I really don’t. I feel like nothing’s going to change.

“I’m not saying something should change, but to me, that’s a poorly coached football team. I don’t know what else to say.

“If it’s one unit that continues to fall short, if it’s one unit that makes too many mistakes, if it’s one unit that’s losing your games, that’s one thing. But if it’s everywhere on the field, you know, if it’s everybody taking a turn, as they did through that collapse,” that’s bad.

There’s one change that Bowles could make that would be a major step toward getting the Bucs’ arrow pointing up again. That would be to allow Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht to bring in a defensive coordinator and that man will have full control of the defense.

This indifference to an edge rush is destroying the team from within. Just once since 2019 has Bowles’ had a pass defense not ranked in the 20s.

And, the icing on top is that the Bucs had the worst red zone defense in the NFL in terms of scoring percentage. Dead-freaking-last.

Most defensive coordinators or head coaches overseeing a defense with that bad of a record are almost never retained. For Bowles to keep his job, Joe hopes it came with qualifications. And one of those should be to give up his defensive coordinator duties.

Let’s be real: Given the aforementioned information, there is no way anyone can say with a straight face those are acceptable results. At least, not acceptable for a winning organization.