The Tampa Bay Buccaneers has appointed Todd Bowles as its new head coach following the sudden retirement of its Super Bowl-winning coach Bruce Arians.
Bowles, the defensive coordinator of the Bucs, has had coaching experience with the New York Jets for several seasons before joining Tampa Bay in 2019 as part of Arians’ coaching staff.
Bowles will become the fourth Back head coach in the team’s 46-year history and the 12th overall, according to WTSP. The first Black head coach was Tony Dungy, who was first hired in 1996, followed by Raheem Morris, who became head coach in 2009, and then Lovie Smith, who took charge of the Bucs in 2014.
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Before joining the Bucs, Bowles played eight years in the NFL as a safety with the Washington Redskins and with the San Francisco 49ers before ending his career back in Washington, according to AS.
In 1987, he won Super Bowl XXII with the Redskins, and went on to play 117 games in the NFL. Before becoming a coach, Bowles was a Super Bowl winning executive for the Green Bay Packers.
He started his coaching career in the college ranks. He began at Morehouse St. as defensive coordinator and secondary coach. He then went to Grambling State and served as their defensive coordinator for the next two seasons.
He got his first NFL coaching job with New York as the Jets secondary coach in 2000. He also had stints in Cleveland and Dallas, before he was announced as the assistant head coach of the Miami Dolphins, and later was named interim head coach in 2011 after Tony Sporano left.
Arians has praised Bowles and endorsed his appointment. He said in a statement that “Todd is a great football coach and I know he will do excellent things here with the Buccaneers.
“The coaching staff has been crucial to the success we have enjoyed here the past few seasons. Coaching is about teaching players, and this staff has some of the best teachers in the business.”
Bowles is now one of just four Black head coaches in the NFL. There is Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, Houston’s Lovie Smith and Miami’s Mike McDaniel, who identifies as biracial, according to WTSP.
