How Unqualified Did Mike Evans Consider Josh Grizzard To Be?
March 5th, 2026
The most interesting news to come from the NFL Scouting Combine absolutely was Todd Bowles’ piercing words during his sitdown on the Ira Kaufman Podcast, presented by Bill Currie Ford, which celebrates its 65th anniversary in Tampa today.
Bowles hurled fired fall guy offensive coordinator under a fleet of buses.
The money line was concise. “I thought ‘Grizz’ was about maybe two or three years from putting it all together,” Bowles said.
Ouch!
Bowles didn’t seem to hold back. “…I don’t know; he came up with some good schemes and we had some good things, but we didn’t kind of call them all the time. We would run them in practice, we didn’t run them in a game. And I thought from a head coaching standpoint, there were certain situations that we probably could have done better. And it just felt like we were stagnant and we were not where we needed to be.”
Joe followed up to ask Bowles if players felt the same way about Grizzard. He said in some ways they did.
So that brings Joe to the most experienced offensive player on the Tampa Bay roster: pending free agent Mike Evans.
Surely Evans realized Grizzard was overmatched (assuming Bowles is accurate). And Evans’ good buddy Baker Mayfield, who had seven playcallers before Grizzard, also had to also believe the offense was in shaky hands.
Joe thinks this is a critical element to Evans returning to the Bucs after the free agency dinner bell rings on Monday at noon.
If Evans believes the Bucs won eight games last season with a sad defense, a slew of injuries to key players and an incompetent offensive coordinator, then he surely believes the Bucs can accomplish great things in 2026.
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Ira Kaufman Dives Deep Into The Mike Evans Debate, Talks Coach/GM Accountability, Trey Hendrickson & Much More