Todd Bowles’ tenure as Jets head coach got off to such a good start that it was nearly impossible to envision the failure that would transpire shortly thereafter.
New York fell just short of the playoffs in Bowles’ first season as head coach in 2015, but went 10-6 and showed enough to indicate that it would be a contender under the long-time defensive assistant’s watch for years to come. That never came close to becoming a reality, as the Jets went 5-11 in 2016 and 2017 before going 4-12 in 2018.
That proved to be the final straw for Bowles, as he was fired after three seasons of failing to manage personalities in the locker room and falling even shorter in the in-game coaching department. Clock management was a major issue for Bowles, as was being far too passive in situations where the Jets should have been pushing the envelope. His calm demeanor, meanwhile, didn’t always play well in the New York spotlight.
Now Bowles has been given a second chance at being a head coach in Tampa Bay after Bruce Arians retired. Bowles plans on doing things his way instead of what he thought was the right way when he took over the Jets as a rookie head coach.
“I think that when I first started in New York [I found that] when you try to do things the ‘right way,’ you don’t do things your way and you end up having regret,” Bowles said Friday. “So I’m going to do things my way.”
Bowles played a major part in helping the Buccaneers win a Super Bowl in 2020, making him a natural fit to replace Arians — even after the way his stint with the Jets ended. Bowles’ coaching acumen has seldom been in question. He is widely regarded as one of the better defensive minds in the NFL and a strong Xs and Os coach.
How Bowles improves upon the issues that plagued him with the Jets will ultimately determine how his second chance at a coveted head-coaching job plays out. Bowles’ time in the Big Apple is long behind him, but the lessons he learned from the job are something he will carry into his newest gig.
“I think when you take a head job [for the first time] you have to wear a lot of hats, but you had never experienced wearing those hats,” Bowles said. “When you understand that going in…without the experience I think you tend to do things a little differently. You have to be man enough to know when you can change things. Usually, when people get fired they blame everybody else. The first thing I did was look within myself, and there were a lot of things I can do better.”
