Todd Bowles Archives - Head Coach Ranking

HCR Coaching Spotlight: Top Assistant Coaches for NFL Week 2

By HCR Staff | Sept. 17, 2019

Here are the assistant coaches that get Week 2’s HCR Coaching Spotlight:

Jason Simmons, Secondary, Packers — As we said last week, we like what Simmons is producing with a young Packers secondary. In this game, cornerback Kevin King made a game-saving interception. The Packers secondary is playing with tremendous energy and discipline this year.
Bobby Turner, Jr., Running backs, 49ers — Veteran assistant Bobby Turner constantly produces terrific runners, and he has the 49er backs producing at a high level again. Even with free agent acquisition Tevin Coleman out with an injury, Turner did not miss a beat as he integrated recent roster addition Jeff Wilson to an unheralded group led by undrafted Matt Breida.
Matt Eberflus, Defensive coordinator, Colts — Eberflus is highly intelligent and disciplined, and his unit plays fast with a lot of confidence. The scheme isn’t overly complex, but Eberflus knows his personnel well and lets their athleticism shine. He’s a potential HC candidate soon.
Todd Bowles, Defensive coordinator, Buccaneers — Winning a divisional game on a short week is a tough feat, but the Bucs did it because of the great work by Bowles’ defense. Communication problems still exist from time to time, but it is early, and many of the players still are adjusting. This is a highly underrated unit that will cause problems for opponents all season long.

HCR Coaching Spotlight: Bruce Arians’ Masterful Thursday Night Win

By HCR Staff | Sept. 13, 2019

Bruce Arians is an unabashedly confident head coach. Some find his style a bit off-putting, but he is himself and consistent – unafraid to let it all out there. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers reflected Arians’ style in their win against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday night. It wasn’t necessarily dominant or flashy, but they trusted what they had, came with a plan and executed that plan.

For Arians, it was a trifecta of victories. The Bucs defeated a divisional foe, on a short week, and came away with a road win, snapping a seven-game road losing streak. There were three things that we liked that helped the Bucs achieve that perfect trifecta.

In his postgame interview, Arians had several positive things to say about QB Jameis Winston. A big question heading into Thursday night was whether Winston could avoid turnovers after he threw two pick sixes last week. Still, Arians showed confidence in his quarterback, and the commitment to develop his quarterback was shown through the patience of the offense. Even when Winston had “negative” plays, playcalling continued to show confidence in him.
Defensive coordinator Todd Bowles’ playcalling was impressive. There were times they had trouble lining up (as they are adjusting to a new scheme), but at each key moment, Bowles had an answer. The Bucs defense earned the offense’s trust which allowed them to hold the ball and play at their own pace. It was the definition of complementary football. In two weeks, the new Bucs defense has only allowed one touchdown.
We also liked the energy shown by the Bucs. It’s hard to do on a short week road trip, and add in a weather delay on top of that. Credit to the Bucs’ conditioning staff – they played with good energy all night, especially WR Chris Godwin and LB Shaq Barrett.

Assessing the Eight NFL Head Coaches That Were Fired in 2018

By HCR Staff | Jan. 3, 2019

“Black Monday,” as they call it, is a sad day in the NFL. No one in the profession likes to see another coach lose his job. When an owner makes the decision to terminate a head coach, that decision has consequences far beyond the head coach. It affects a lot of families, and even the careers of many players, as those players’ styles of play may be particularly suited to that head coach. For each team hiring a new head coach, it is a good bet that nearly 60 percent of its roster will be turned over within the next two years.

Here is our assessment of each of the eight head coaches that were terminated in 2018:

Hue Jackson, Cleveland Browns
Most coaches feel that Jackson is a good, experienced coach — deposed Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis went out of his way to extol Jackson’s virtues during his own final press conference. Our primary criticism of Jackson would be that he seems to have a penchant for creating drama whenever he receives some measure of authority. For example, when he was head coach of the Raiders, owner Al Davis passed away during Jackson’s tenure. As soon as that happened, Jackson went full “Al Haig” (for those readers under the age of 50, here’s the reference), and it was highly unbecoming. Over the last two years as head coach of the Browns, Jackson seemed to have a new gimmick every week. On one occasion, it was something about jumping into Lake Erie. On another occasion, it was about withholding the stripe decal for the players’ helmets until they accomplished something in training camp. If Jackson gets another opportunity to be a head coach, our advice would be to keep the focus on the game, as opposed to himself.

Conclusion: Turn down the drama, Hue.

Steve Wilks, Arizona Cardinals
We believe that every head coach, with few exceptions, should be given more than one year to show progress. Wilks confronted a series of obstacles that he did not create and had no control over (e.g., rookie quarterback, a general manager who was arrested and suspended, a rash of injuries, the installation of a new system that did not fit the existing personnel, etc). We obviously don’t know how Wilks would have done in a second year, but based on what we observed this year, he did appear to have a longer learning curve than others.

Conclusion: Just a few more years experience as a coordinatorbefore next head coaching job.

Vance Joseph, Denver Broncos
We definitely saw progress with Vance Joseph in 2018. In his rookie season, he made far too many errors and his team seemed unprepared on too many occasions. This year, however, we saw significant progress, and that did play out on the field as the Broncos were a tough out for some of the best teams in the league. Like many defensive-minded head coaches, however, Joseph struggled with his offensive choices. While he was shortening his learning curve as a head coach, however, for whatever reason, Broncos general manager John Elway didn’t want to wait any longer. Based on the progress that we saw, however, we believe Joseph still has room to grow as a head coach in the future.

Conclusion: Have better offensive coordinator choices available to you in your next head coaching opportunity.

Dirk Koetter, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
We have watched Koetter as a head coach at Boise State, Arizona State, and now Tampa Bay. Our conclusion is that he is a good offensive coordinator.

Conclusion: Best of luck to you in your next offensive coordinator position.

Mike McCarthy, Green Bay Packers
We strongly believe McCarthy will be a success wherever he goes next. Clearly, the relationship between McCarthy and quarterback Aaron Rodgers had changed somewhat, and perhaps, they simply had been together too long. That doesn’t mean anyone did anything wrong, but sometimes in the coaching profession, the dynamic can get a bit stale and, like anything else, needs some new energy and refreshment.

Conclusion: Simple change of scenery is all that’s needed for McCarthy.

Marvin Lewis, Cincinnati Bengals
Marvin Lewis is a terrific coach and we believe he, too, will see success if he chooses to pursue being a head coach again. Our only constructive criticism would be that his teams tended to play tight and undisciplined at the same time. Having said that, it should be emphasized that Lewis had one of the most difficult head-coaching jobs in the league working for the Brown family in Cincinnati. This is an organization that lacks resources and just does not operate like most of the other franchises (and not in a good way). We feel Lewis did an unbelievable job covering up a lot of the ills in this organization. Finally, losing Jay Gruden as an offensive coordinator was a big blow to Lewis, and Gruden’s successors simply did not measure up.

Conclusion: Like McCarthy, Lewis will succeed with a change of scenery.

Todd Bowles, New York Jets
We believe Todd Bowles has significant promise as a head coach. However, he has a couple of prominent blind spots. The first is that, like many defensive-minded head coaches, he seems to lack a direction on what he really wants out of an offense, other than to simply not screw it up. The second blind spot would be his ability to evaluate players. There was a lot of hit-and-miss during his tenure as head coach, but we are sure much of that also was the responsibility of general manager Mike Maccagnan. If Bowles were paired with a more prominent general manager than Maccagnan, we believe he has a chance to be a winning head coach.

Conclusion: Get paired with a great general manager, and stay out of his way.

Adam Gase, Miami Dolphins
Obviously, Adam Gase is a good coach. Peyton Manning is as good an authority as any of us will ever see, and he is convinced of Gase’s ability. And that’s good enough for us. So what is the problem here? Based on some of the reports we’ve seen, Gase may have a problem relating to players of a certain ilk. That’s obviously not good. Another problem may not have been Gase’s fault at all: Simply put, he may have not been ready to be a head coach. Still only 40 years old, Gase had never been in a position where he was the ultimate decision-maker prior to the Dolphins job. All we know is that his Dolphins teams exhibited wild inconsistency and puzzling lack of energy at times. That is a reflection on the head coach.

Conclusion: With just a bit more maturity and better personal relationships, Gase will be a winning head coach.

New England Patriots 38, New York Jets 3 – Dec. 30, 2018

At New England
1:00 p.m. ET

TEAM	PLAY CALLING	PERSONNEL	GAME PLANNING	IN-GAME ADJ	CLOCK MGMT	HCR
NYJ	6	7	6	5	6	6.0
NE	8	8	8	8	8	8.0

Key Observations:
• Admittedly, this was a very tough game to grade Jets head coach Todd Bowles. The Jets came into the game with an abundance of injuries in their secondary and wide receiver group. Therefore, the game plan had to be kept fairly vanilla.

• While the Jets lost the game, they did get a good look at some of the younger players that might be able to contribute in 2019. Wide receiver Deontay Burnett had a very good game, linebacker Jordan Jenkins is an ascending player, and young defensive backs Rashard Robinson and Derrick Jones also showed promise.

• New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has a team that does nothing exceptionally well, but many things very, very well. In the playoffs, we see the Patriots playing a patient game and one where they wait for opponents to make a critical mistake. Neither the Patriots offense nor the defense has an explosive quality to it, but Patriots players are well-disciplined and situationally aware.

• While Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski contributed in the victory, we still don’t see him being able to run as effectively as he once did. Because he now has athletic limitations, opposing defenses may no longer utilize a double-team on him. He is going to get more one-on-one opportunities — if he can cash in on just a few of those, the Patriots offense still could make some noise in the playoffs.

Green Bay Packers 44, New York Jets 38 – Dec. 23, 2018

At New York
!:00 p.m. ET

TEAM	PLAY CALLING	PERSONNEL	GAME PLANNING	IN-GAME ADJ	CLOCK MGMT	HCR
GB	7	7	7	7	8	7.2
NYJ	7	8	7	5	5	6.4

Key Observations:
• This game was a microcosm of head coach Todd Bowles’ tenure with the Jets. Flashes of brilliance, punctuated with stretches of mediocrity and head-scratching play. The Jets controlled this entire game, except at the end. While the Packers were mounting furious rallies during periods of this game, the Jets never made any defensive adjustments to throw quarterback Aaron Rodgers off his rhythm. Three separate times, the Jets led by 14 points. An NFL team simply shouldn’t lose when that happens, particularly at home.

• While national commentators have spent the entire season speaking about the Packers lack of talent, we beg to differ. Little-used running back Jamaal Williams, a 2017 fourth-round draft pick, had a terrific game, and the Packers young receiver group continues to improve. Packers defensive back Jaire Alexander also is on his way to becoming a highly productive player and star. In our view, the Packers need an attitude change more than anything else. Sometimes they seem to play as if the opponent should roll over simply because they are the Packers.

• Jets rookie quarterback Sam Darnold continues to shine, and he is developing a nice rapport with wide receiver Robby Anderson. Tight end Chris Herndon also is a blossoming star. The game clearly is slowing down for Darnold, and if the Jets are able to get him some more help, he will become one of the best quarterbacks in football. He has a feel for the game that is superior to some of his peers. His poise and composure also are impressive and appears to rub off on his teammates.