SR’s Fab 5: Why Josh Grizzard Would possibly Be Bucs’ Subsequent Nice OC | Pewter Report

INTRO: The Bucs have actually had success on the offensive coordinator place since firing Byron Leftwich after the 2022 season. Now, go recreation coordinator Josh Grizzard has the prospect to be the subsequent nice Bucs offensive coordinator after Dave Canales and Liam Coen did it so nicely that they have been employed as NFL head coaches after only one season calling performs in Tampa Bay in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Listed here are 5 the explanation why Grizzard was the proper rent by the Bucs group to switch Coen in a brand new SR’s Fab 5 column. Take pleasure in!

FAB 1. Josh Grizzard Helps Bucs Preserve Continuity On Offense

Bucs go recreation coordinator Josh Grizzard – Picture by: Cliff Welch/PR

It was clear from the candidates the Bucs selected to interview for his or her vacant offensive coordinator place that continuity on offense was a precedence. Head coach Todd Bowles and common supervisor Jason Licht correctly acknowledged that the crew’s success on offense final yr was a perform of the whole offensive workers and never simply play-caller Liam Coen.

To that finish, Bowles and Licht needed to maintain the Rams-based system, which incorporates the verbiage from final yr and the ideas that Coen imported, resembling heavy use of movement and bunch formations, intact as a lot as doable shifting ahead. Whereas there have been loads of candidates who have been interviewed who had ties to the Rams group and have been Sean McVay disciples, Bucs go recreation coordinator Josh Grizzard was right here to witness the crew’s success and be a part of the explanation why Tampa Bay had a lot success offensively in 2024.

Selling Grizzard, who’s a Yale graduate and regarded to be extremely vibrant and stuffed with concepts, makes a number of sense even though he has no play-calling expertise. He already has a working relationship with the workers, and it’s clear that the Bucs needed to hold on to their present assistants slightly than usher in an outdoor offensive coordinator who would need to usher in his personal workers to work with.

That was clear with Tampa Bay blocking Coen from hiring offensive line coach Kevin Carberry away to be Jacksonville’s offensive line coach on Wednesday and did the identical with blocking assistant offensive line coach Brian Picucci on Thursday. It looks as if Grizzard will stick with it with most of – if not all of – the Bucs offensive assistants from final yr. The truth that Bowles and Licht spent a full offseason and season with Grizzard additionally helped give him the sting over Rams tight ends coach and go recreation coordinator Nick Caley as a result of Grizzard is a identified commodity throughout the constructing.

The Bucs offense was extremely unpredictable as a result of every week was a distinct recreation plan designed to assault the weak spot of opposing defenses. Some weeks noticed Tampa Bay use 11 personnel and go the ball extra to the broad receivers, whereas different weeks noticed the offense use extra 12 and 13 personnel groupings with a number of tight ends and run the ball extra. The variety of the run bundle from broad zone to hole made Tampa Bay’s speeding assault extremely efficient, and Baker Mayfield was in a position to unfold the ball round to receivers, tight ends and backs due to the range of the passing assault, too. These are ideas that the Bucs need to proceed to deploy below Grizzard.

FAB 2. Josh Grizzard Spent Time Working With The Complete Bucs Offense In 2024

Bucs RB Bucky Irving and go recreation coordinator Josh Grizzard – Picture by: Cliff Welch/PR

Josh Grizzard served as Liam Coen’s sounding board on offense final yr because the go recreation coordinator, along with doing a little advance scouting work for the upcoming opponent every week. Because the go recreation coordinator, Grizzard was not simply working with quarterback Baker Mayfield. He would spend totally different parts of every follow working with the totally different place teams on offense.

“I move around a good amount,” Grizzard stated throughout his lone Bucs press convention within the spring. “I’ve been in the receiver room. I have been in the quarterback room the last couple of weeks. I do have the history of coaching the receivers, so it might be on the field where we’re helping with drills and things like that. Even with the tight ends or could be the backs, as well. But it does allow me to move around to different spots.”

The data gained from being uncovered to each place group on offense gave Grizzard some perception into each participant on offense the place he noticed their stage of focus in addition to their follow habits and what makes them tick up shut. That’s a number of perception that can assist him perceive the strengths and weaknesses of every Bucs participant on offense from firsthand observations – not simply asking different place coaches for his or her opinions.

FAB 3. Josh Grizzard Proved Himself Inside The Group On Third Downs

Bucs go recreation coordinator Josh Grizzard and RBs coach Skip Peete – Picture by: Cliff Welch/PR

Former offensive coordinator Liam Coen gave every one in all his assistants a recreation plan position for the 2024 season, and Josh Grizzard’s position was Tampa Bay’s third down bundle. The truth that the Bucs offense completed first within the league on third downs with a 51.1% conversion charge was not misplaced on head coach Todd Bowles and common supervisor Jason Licht. The Bucs even transformed 55% on third downs within the crew’s 23-20 playoff loss to Washington within the NFC Wild Card spherical.

In some organizations, the go recreation coordinator position is solely an assistant to the offensive coordinator. It’s somebody who’s simply above a top quality management coach and is chargeable for personnel substitutions and slicing up movie. However that wasn’t the case in Tampa Bay.

Coen empowered his assistants in Tampa Bay to participate within the recreation plan, and gave Grizzard a giant accountability with the third down bundle. Different assistant coaches have been chargeable for the four-minute offense, the two-minute drill and crimson zone. Grizzard actually excelled in his position and Todd Bowles and Jason Licht took discover.

FAB 4. Collaboration Is Key On Offense

Bucs go recreation coordinator Josh Grizzard and former OC Liam Coen – Picture by: Cliff Welch/PR

Among the best issues about Liam Coen’s success as a play-caller in Tampa Bay final yr was the truth that it was a collaborative course of. On a number of events, Coen famous how little time he spent in his personal workplace and the way a lot time he spent within the offensive assembly room working with the whole workers in live performance collectively.

Coen was a giant believer in collaboration, and that was good publicity for Josh Grizzard. Coen’s collaborative model helped the offensive assistants get to know one another higher and type a stronger bond as a consequence of the entire assembly time spent collectively in a single room. It additionally helped the assistants grow to be extra accountable to one another and to the offense as an entire.

The Bucs hope this follow continues with Grizzard, and with the crew centered on continuity on offense, it possible will. If it ain’t broke, don’t repair it. Search for Grizzard to proceed to work in collaboration together with his offensive assistants and stick with it that follow that began final offseason in the course of the OTAs and continued all through the common season.

FAB 5. Expertise From Working For 4 Head Coaches, Quite a few NFL Play-Callers

Bucs go recreation assistant Josh Grizzard – Picture by: Miami Dolphins

Regardless of being simply 34 years outdated, Josh Grizzard has 13 years of teaching expertise, together with eight years within the NFL – the primary seven of which occurred in Miami the place he was an offensive high quality management coach (2017-18), high quality management coach (2019), broad receivers coach (2020-21) and offensive high quality management coach once more (2022-23). Maybe essentially the most spectacular factor about Grizzard’s stint with the Dolphins is that it spanned three teaching regimes.

Grizzard started teaching at Yale, his alma mater, in 2012 earlier than shifting on to Duke the place he was a grad assistant and high quality management coach from 2013-16. He was then employed by Adam Gase and made such an impression on the Miami group that he was held over by not simply Brian Flores, who coached the Dolphins from 2019-2021, but in addition Mike McDaniel, who was employed in 2022. To cross over three totally different regimes is extremely uncommon for any assistant coach, however it speaks to the worth Grizzard dropped at the group.

Todd Bowles makes the fourth NFL head coach that Grizzard has labored for. And he’s had publicity to quite a lot of totally different offensive coordinators and play-callers, together with Gase, 4 totally different coordinators who labored for Flores in Chad O’Shea, Chan Gailey, George Godsey and Eric Studesville, and McDaniel along with Liam Coen in Tampa Bay.

Grizzard has had publicity to the system that Peyton Manning ran when Gase was his offensive coordinator in Denver, along with Kyle Shanahan’s system, of which McDaniel was a disciple. And thru Coen, Grizzard has had his share of Sean McVay’s affect with the present Bucs playbook, which labored so nicely in 2024. Merely put, Grizzard has a wealth of expertise to attract from – and from a number of totally different offensive programs as he takes over the reins as Tampa Bay’s offensive play-caller.