What Will the Buccaneers' Offense Look like Under Liam Coen?
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have done their due diligence in their search for a new offensive coordinator since Dave Canales left to take the head coaching job with the Carolina Panthers and they now have their guy in Liam Coen.
Coen will be taking over as the new playcaller for the Buccaneers in 2024 after spending the last six years between the University of Kentucky and the Los Angeles Rams in a multitude of different roles. In 2022 Coen served as the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator before heading back to Kentucky in the same role. He will now return to the NFL in 2024 to help lead the Bucs’ offense in the footsteps of Dave Canales.
Usually with a new coordinator hire there is believed to be differences in how the new guy will run things or philosophy. But with Coen coming in, there doesn’t seem to be a huge gap in his teachings/ways of coaching than that of former OC Dave Canales.
Coen looks to bring creativity to the Buccaneers’ offense as he has worked under both Sean McVay in Los Angeles and Shane Waldron in Seattle. That should align with what Canales was able to install in his one year as the OC in Tampa Bay and from what Coen has mentioned in the past about his offense it should align promptly with what head coach Todd Bowles was looking for in his new hire.
"I believe that truly marrying the run and the pass is something I’ve learned is such an advantage in winning for us here," Coen said during his time as the offensive coordinator at Kentucky. "We’ve run the football effectively, but all of our play-actions and keepers and movements and things like that are directly married to the run game that we’re able to utilize here.“
If that doesn’t matchup with exactly what Canales was able to accomplish in Tampa Bay and with QB Baker Mayfield I don’t know what else does.
Canales was able to maintain the run game - no matter how effective - to be able to get Baker into prime passing situations to allow him to work out of the play-action and find his skill players in space down the field. If Coen is able to replicate that and even improve it the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offense should do just fine in 2024.
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